Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (3 page)

She turned and looked up at Lady Barb. The older woman smiled, although there was something in her expression that suggested she was deeply worried. As always, Lady Barb looked
formidable
. Her long blonde hair cascaded down over stout shoulders and a muscular body. She might not have the porcelain-doll features Alassa enjoyed, but she had attracted the attention of dozens of male students. Emily rather suspected that the students were the ones who didn’t take her class. Lady Barb was a hard taskmaster.

“You have to be more careful,” Lady Barb warned, dryly. “You never know who might be sneaking up on you.”

Emily smiled. “In the library?”

“Most of the spells used to keep students quiet have been deactivated for the summer,” Lady Barb pointed out. “If there were more students here...”

Emily shrugged, her mind filling in the blanks. Students were allowed – even encouraged – to prank one another, in the belief that it taught them how to react to unexpected situations and learn how to defend themselves. But, right now, there were only a handful of students left in Whitehall. Even the Gorgon, who was one of the most studious students in Second Year, had gone home. Emily was the only student of her age to remain in Whitehall.

Lady Barb nodded towards Emily’s notebook. “Are you keeping up with your security spells?”

Emily gritted her teeth, then nodded. After Lin had stolen her notes and vanished from Whitehall, Lady Barb had given her a crash course in security spells that were normally untaught until the student took on an apprenticeship. Making them work was different, but no one apart from Emily herself should be able to read her notes. Lady Barb had warned her that she
would
be testing the notebook on a regular basis and Emily would regret it if she managed to crack the protections hiding her work. Part of Emily resented it, but she understood just how dangerous it would be if her notes fell into the wrong hands.

More of my notes
, she told herself, as she closed the notebook and felt the spells slide into place. They were based on her blood, rather than anything else; Lady Barb had told her that her unique blood – she had no relatives in the new world – would be the strongest protection she could hope to provide. She didn’t have to worry about a brother or sister accidentally cracking her protections. But there was no such thing as a completely unbreakable spell...

She passed the notebook to Lady Barb and settled back to watch, hoping and praying that the spells remained unbreakable. Some of the spells she’d designed were harmless – or at least not particularly innovative – but some of them were revolutionary. She’d used memory charms to write down as much of the Mimic’s spell-structure as she could, knowing that whoever had created the mobile spells was a genius as well as a monster...and she dreaded to think what use an evil magician would make of them. The Mimic had been based on necromancy...somehow, the creator had managed to make necromancy
practical
. There was just too much room for abuse.

But it wasn’t the worst of the spells.

She caught her breath as Lady Barb broke the first ward. Shadye had died through luck, she had to admit, and there were other necromancers out there. One day, Emily knew, they would come over the mountains and attack the Allied Lands in force...and, on that day, they might prove unstoppable. She’d devised the nuclear spell to repel that offensive, but it refused to work properly. If triggered, it would detonate within seconds...taking out the caster as well as its target. And splitting atoms didn’t seem to require a very powerful magician. There were times when Emily suspected that this world’s industrial revolution would lead to complete and total disaster.

Good thing it wasn’t a computer wizard who came here
, she thought.
He’d be a God-Mode Sue by now
.

Lady Barb muttered an oath as her hands jerked back, shocked. “Not bad,” she said, drawing Emily’s mind out of her thoughts. “And the first ward was well-placed to distract attention.”

Emily smiled, feeling a flicker of pride. Lady Barb rarely gave praise, but when it was given it was always deserved. The heavy security wards she’d wrapped around the notebook would almost certainly attract attention, so she’d crafted the first ward to resemble a normal privacy ward and the second one to conceal the others. Anyone who had seen the wards without that cover would have
known
that there was something inside worth concealing. No one, with the possible exception of Alassa, would conceal their personal journal with so much determination.

She took the notebook back and dropped it into her bag. “Are we ready to go?”

“More or less,” Lady Barb agreed. She gave Emily a reproving look. “Do you have your bag packed?”

“It’s in my room,” Emily confirmed. “Most of my stuff is going to be stored at Whitehall.”

“It should be safe enough,” Lady Barb agreed.

Emily had her doubts. Whitehall was supposed to be invulnerable, but Shadye had broken into the school in her first year and the Mimic had killed dozens of students in her second year. There were times when she wondered if the Grandmaster blamed her for the series of disasters, even though he’d shown no sign of it. Her arrival at the school had triggered off the series of events that led to Shadye’s invasion.

She stood up. “Where should I meet you?”

“In the Entrance Hall,” Lady Barb said. “I hope you have packed everything I told you to pack...?”

Emily nodded. Lady Barb had told her that she would have to carry everything herself, without benefit of magic. She was stronger than she’d ever been on Earth, but she knew there were still limits to how much she could carry. During Martial Magic, it had taken her months to build up the muscles the boys had taken for granted.

“Go on then,” Lady Barb ordered with a smile. “But there’s no real hurry.”

Emily waved goodbye to Lady Aylia, then walked out of the library and down towards the dorms. The school was quiet, too quiet. She found herself looking around warily as she passed a line of statues – famous magicians through the ages – and stopped in front of a painting one of the older students had produced. Every time she looked at it, she couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. It purported to show her battle with Shadye, but she knew all-too-well that the battle had been very different. She’d certainly not been a match for the maddened necromancer in raw power.

She’d protested to Lady Barb when the painting had first been hung on the walls, but the older woman had pointed out that the painting helped reassure the younger students and their parents that Whitehall was safe. Emily hadn’t been convinced – magic could be very dangerous, even without a necromancer or a dangerous monster running loose in the school – yet further argument seemed futile. She looked up at her figure in the painting and shook her head, running her hands through her long brown hair. Painting-Emily stood tall, practically glowing with light, her long hair spinning around her as she cast a spell. She’d never been so beautiful in her entire life. Hardly anyone could recognize her from the painting.

Snorting, she pressed her hand against the stone and watched as the door slid open, revealing a darkened corridor leading towards Madame Razz’s office. The stout housemother was nowhere to be seen, thankfully. Most of the First Years had gone home, but the handful who hadn’t were driving the housemother slowly insane. Emily smiled as she walked down the corridor and stepped through the door leading to her room. She rather liked Madam Razz, but the older woman could be quite strict.

Inside, Emily couldn’t help wincing at how bare the room seemed. Emily and the Gorgon had shared it for the rest of the year, after Lin had made her escape, but the Gorgon was gone and there would be another room next year. The Gorgon’s bed had been stripped down to the mattress, leaving her side of the room looking mournful. Emily felt an odd lump in her throat as she walked over to the mirror and looked at her reflection. Once, she’d had problems growing used to the idea of sharing her room with anyone. Now...she found she missed the Gorgon. And the rest of her friends.

The Emily she saw in the mirror was no longer the girl she expected to see. Her once-underfed face was filled out and healthy, the outdoor exercise giving her pale face at least a little healthy color. Her brown hair was thicker and with a little shine, an effect of better food. She had muscles she had never dreamed possible, even if she was still worryingly thin, and other developments she hadn’t expected either. It was chilling to realize she would never have developed into a grown woman on Earth.

Shaking her head, she glanced into her bag. There was one set of dress robes, carefully tailored for her at Dragon’s Den, one standard student set of robes and four walking outfits. She’d also been warned not to bring more than a handful of books, something that bothered her more than the prospect of wearing dress robes. Her collection of books was small, but growing rapidly. Being separated from them bothered her, even though she knew it wasn’t logical.

Emily picked up the white envelope from the cabinet and opened it, pulling out the single sheet of creamy white parchment inside. She’d never really cared about her grades on Earth, not when they were meaningless to her. No matter how well she did at school, it wouldn’t help her get out of poverty. But in Whitehall, grades were important. The exams she’d taken a month ago would help to shape her future, at least the part of it she would spend at Whitehall. She skimmed through the parchment, noting – again – that she’d done very well. Martial Magic was the only course she’d failed outright, and then only because the other students had had four extra years of schooling.

I would have had to retake parts of it anyway
, Emily consoled herself.
Sergeant Miles wouldn’t let me waste time
.

Shaking her head, Emily undressed, removing the uniform she’d worn in Blackhall, and jumped into the shower for a quick wash, then dried herself with a spell and pulled on the first walking outfit. Lady Barb hadn’t told her what she should wear for the trip, but Emily was already dreading the passage through the portal. If nothing else, she could clean one of the walking outfits easily. The garments were already charmed to keep dust and mud from sticking permanently.

Once she was dressed, she took one last look at her trunk, feeling oddly upset at the thought of leaving it behind. The first trunk was long gone, but it had been the first thing she’d bought with money she’d earned at Whitehall, while the second was actually an improvement. Yodel had done very good work, she had to admit, even if he’d helped Emily get into real trouble. But it hadn’t really been his fault...she picked up the trunk, marveling at the charm that made it almost weightless for its rightful owner, and carried it out of her room. Down the corridor, she could hear Madame Razz telling off one of the first years. Emily rolled her eyes as she walked into the storeroom and carefully placed the trunk in a sealed compartment. It should be safe for three months.

“Your parents paid for you to stay for extra tuition,” Madame Razz’s voice proclaimed, as Emily stepped back into the corridor. “I don’t
think
they meant for you to try to rig the beds with itching spells. Or were they just trying to get rid of you for a few more weeks?”

Emily winced as the two came into view, Madame Razz dragging the unruly First Year by her ear. Parents of magical children who weren’t magical themselves were often unsure of the way to treat their gifted children. Emily had heard horror stories about children – teenagers, really – using their magic to lord it over their parents, relatives and childhood friends. Imaiqah had been lucky, she knew. Other parents tended to allow their children to fade away into the magical community.

She wondered absently if the First Year knew how lucky she was to have decent parents. Emily’s father had left his family when his daughter had been very young, her mother had been steadily drinking herself to death and her stepfather...Emily shuddered as the memory rose up to torment her, before she forced it back into the darkness of her mind. She was no longer on Earth and she would never see him again. Stepping back into her room, she glanced around to make sure that she hadn’t left anything behind. The dirty uniform would be picked up by the servants and washed; there was nothing else in the room that belonged to her. It looked almost as if she’d never lived there at all.

Emily picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder and walked out of the room, refusing to look back. There was no sign of Madame Razz now. Emily hesitated, wondering if she should find her to say goodbye, then decided against it and walked out of the compartment and down towards the Entrance Hall. The two pranksters were still cleaning the Great Hall thoroughly, supervised by a grim-faced Master Tor. Emily scowled at his back – Master Tor had made his intention of leaving Whitehall quite clear, but he had yet to actually
leave
– and walked around the Great Hall. She didn’t really want to talk to a teacher who’d disliked her long before he’d actually
met
her.

Lady Barb was waiting in the Entrance Hall, a small bag slung around her shoulder. Emily caught the look in her eye and wordlessly handed over her own bag for the older woman to search. It was irritating not to be trusted to pack her own bag, but Lady Barb had made it clear that it would be hard to replace anything she’d missed once they were on their way.

“Good,” Lady Barb said, finally. “But you probably shouldn’t carry so many books. You
will
be busy.”

Emily nodded, but made no move to remove the books.

Lady Barb smiled and passed the bag back to her. “Just remember you have to carry them,” she warned, as Emily took the bag. She’d said the same thing time and time again. “I won’t be carrying them for you.”

“I know,” Emily said quietly.

She looked up as the Grandmaster stepped into the hall. He looked older, somehow, the lines on his face clearer than ever. His eyes, hidden behind a cloth, seemed to twitch in Emily’s direction. Lady Barb dropped him a long sweeping bow, which Emily followed a moment later. The Grandmaster bowed in return, then smiled tiredly.