Infinite Regress (31 page)

He sighed. “Matters are not helped by the fact that young men brag—they lie—about sex,” he added. “Very few men will openly admit to being virgins. A young man will grow up hearing about all the escapades his fellows have, while knowing he has none of his own.”

Emily frowned. She wanted to believe the sergeant was wrong, but she’d overheard far too many conversations on Earth that supported his words. “Surely he’d know they were lying.”

“He doesn’t want to
believe
they’re lying,” Sergeant Miles said. “If they’re telling the truth, there’s a chance
he
might have the same experiences. And so he chooses to believe them.”

“That makes no sense,” Emily objected.

“You’re applying logic and reason to something that isn’t
governed
by logic and reason,” Sergeant Miles pointed out. “Deep inside, there’s a bit of Caleb that feels insecure because you’re not making love to him. And that little nugget of doubt is threatening to grow larger and rip your relationship apart. He
knows
, intellectually, that you have problems; emotionally, he doesn’t really
believe
it.”

Emily swallowed, torn between an odd amusement and outrage. Caleb shared a room with Cirroc, who had had at least three different girlfriends in the last two months. It couldn’t be easy for Caleb to deal with the fact that his roommate was moving from girl to girl, while his relationship seemed to have stalled. But at the same time, she was damned if she was sleeping with him just to preserve the relationship. She wasn’t even sure if she
could
undress in front of him. The idea of letting him touch her was hard to grasp...

“I feel like... I don’t know how I feel,” she said, finally. She’d wanted to say she felt like a fool, but she wasn’t sure if that was true. “What do I do?”

Sergeant Miles shrugged. “What do you
want
to do?”

Emily stared down at her hands, feeling miserable. She
liked
Caleb; hell, part of her was prepared to admit that she
loved
him. The thought of just pushing him away from her was unbearable. And yet, the notion of making love to him was hard to grasp—and the notion of
having
to make love to him unthinkable. A shudder ran through her body at the thought of letting him touch her, even though she was
sure
he wouldn’t try to hurt her...

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Then sorting that out would be a good first step,” Sergeant Miles said. “Barb would tell you the same.”

Emily looked up at him. “How did you and Lady Barb get together?”

Sergeant Miles shrugged. “We’re both a little older than you and
considerably
more mature,” he said. “We both knew what we wanted when we started the relationship.”

Emily wanted to ask for details, but she didn’t quite dare. Lady Barb would have torn a strip off her for asking, pointing out that it was none of Emily’s business. She’d never seen Sergeant Miles lose his temper, yet he had ample grounds to give her detention for the rest of her natural life for what she’d done to the spellchamber. There was no point in giving him a reason to demand her punishment.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

“Give him some time,” Sergeant Miles said. “A young man like that... the problem built up gradually, over time. Let him have the rest of the day to cool down and start thinking with his big head, instead of his little one. Then you can have a proper talk with him.”

“Thanks,” Emily said. “But what if...?”

Sergeant Miles reached out and clasped her shoulder, very briefly. “Relationships are hard work, if you want them to last,” he said. “And they rely on both parties doing their utmost for the other. If what you and Caleb have is strong, you will overcome this hitch and carry on; if it isn’t, you’ll have found that out before you actually married him.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What
are
you going to do on your wedding night?”

Emily blushed, furiously. It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer.

“You have to think about it,” Sergeant Miles warned. “He’s not going to want to wait.”

“You make it sound as though men are animals,” Emily objected.

“We’re
all
animals when it comes to sex,” Sergeant Miles said. “Our reactions are governed by our biology. It’s as simple as that.”

He rose and strode over to the desk. “What do you make of these?”

Emily scowled, inwardly, as she followed him. A handful of charmed items lay on the desk; five necklaces, several sheets of parchment and a single dagger. She reached out and touched the nearest necklace, blinking in surprise as she realized it carried a powerful tracking hex, one that would last for several weeks without replenishment.

“The Grandmaster insisted that Professor Locke take a few more safety precautions in the future,” Sergeant Miles informed her. “He was
furious
at what happened to you.”

“I thought he wanted to get rid of me,” Emily said, before she could stop herself. Her bottom still ached. “He certainly wasn’t happy...”

“You
were
very rude to him,” Sergeant Miles pointed out, mildly. “But I don’t think he wants you dead.”

He held up one of the necklaces. “There was a big argument yesterday over the whole affair,” he added. “Professor Locke wanted to continue exploring alone, but the Grandmaster overruled him. A number of other tutors and their students will be joining in the exploration.”

“That’s good,” Emily said. “But wouldn’t it be better to simply seal up the tunnels and pretend nothing ever happened?”

“We are dependent on the nexus point,” Sergeant Miles pointed out. “But we don’t understand its innermost workings, let alone how Lord Whitehall managed to take control of the power. Replacing the Warden was hard enough, Emily. I dare say that a single problem with the spellware would eventually lead to disaster.”

Emily swallowed. If the combined spells Caleb and she had created decayed slowly—and it seemed as though they did—she dreaded to imagine what would happen if something went badly wrong to the governing spellware in the nexus point. Whitehall might explode outwards as the pocket dimensions expanded... or the entire system might simply collapse in on itself, just like the dimension she’d used to trap and kill Shadye. She glanced at the walls, despite herself. Were they as solid as she believed?

“So we try to understand how the system works without breaking anything,” she said. “If we have more explorers... surely, there’d be a risk of something being broken.”

“Yes, there would be,” Sergeant Miles agreed, shortly. “Professor Locke made the same argument. But the Grandmaster feels that we should have more people involved in exploring the underground tunnels.”

He tapped one of the sheets of parchment. “I was hoping to sketch a map, using the magic traces as a guide,” he added. “But neither I nor Professor Lombardi can draw the details from the spellware governing the tunnel network. It’s deliberately designed to make it hard to trace.”

“Ouch,” Emily said.

“Quite,” Sergeant Miles agreed.

He turned to face her, his expression suddenly stern. “Now, about the spellchamber...”

Emily swallowed, bracing herself for the worst. Repairing a spellchamber was a hideously complex task at the best of times. It would probably be better to take the spellchamber apart and replace it completely. If nothing else, it would cost Sergeant Miles and Professor Lombardi—and several other charms tutors—a great deal of time, effort and money. And there was no way she could do it for them.

“You really don’t have time for detentions,” Sergeant Miles said, after a moment. “And you’re already sore.”

He shrugged. “I’ll arrange something unpleasant after your first set of exams,” he added, darkly. “Probably using you as a teaching assistant in martial magic. It will teach you a number of useful skills as well as a lesson or two.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Emily said.

“Don’t thank me,” Sergeant Miles said. “I have every intention of working you to death when you have a free moment. Playing at being a hostage is not fun.”

He smiled, then nodded toward the door. Emily turned and hurried out, feeling oddly disconcerted as she walked slowly up the stairs. Part of her wanted to go find Caleb, even though it might lead to another fight; the rest of her just wanted to follow the sergeant’s advice and give him time. But how long should she wait before she spoke to him? She had no idea.

“Emily,” a voice called.

Emily scowled, inwardly, as she saw Tiega sitting on the stairs, looking unhappy. “Tiega,” she said, finally. It was hard to keep the irritation out of her voice. “What’s happened?”

“Another note,” Tiega said, grimly. “It was on my bedside cabinet.”

“Show me,” Emily ordered.

She followed Tiega into the dorms, thinking hard. She’d checked both Adana and Julia, neither of whom had planted any of the notes... she didn’t know how the writer had managed to hide even
one
note in Tiega’s room, let alone two. It was easier to imagine how one might have been hidden in the classrooms, despite the risk of being caught. The bedroom was empty when they entered, much to Emily’s relief. Tiega picked up the note and passed it to her, her face crumpling. Emily felt a stab of bitter sympathy, even though she knew Tiega had been scrubbing caldrons for the last week after throwing an herb into Lillian’s alchemical project, causing a giant explosion. No one deserved to be tormented by a coward who could only write rude notes.

“It was here when I returned from detention,” Tiega said. Her hands were red and raw, even though she would probably have worn gloves. Professor Thande didn’t give many detentions, but the ones he did give were savage. “No one else was in the room.”

Emily scowled as she checked the note. Again, it was written in blocky letters, without either a magical signature or fingerprints. And it had somehow wafted through the wards protecting the bedroom. Only Adana or Julia could have entered the room... yet she’d checked them both. Unless they’d decided to start writing notes
after
the first one had been written... it was possible, she supposed. She’d have to check with them again.

“Damn it,” she said. “How are they doing it?”

“I don’t know,” Tiega said. “But I...”

Emily cast—very carefully—a truth spell. “Are you writing the notes yourself?”

“
No
,” Tiega said. “I... I don’t know who’s writing them!”

“And all the suspects have already been checked,” Emily muttered. She thought fast, considering different options. Rounding up all the first year students and interrogating them one by one was impossible. The tutors would flatly refuse her permission to try, if she asked, and she’d get in hellish trouble if she did it on her own. “Can you leave the room for a few minutes? There are some detection spells I want to try.”

Tiega nodded and headed for the door. Emily watched her go, then cast the most powerful detection spell she could, hoping to sense a magical signature that was out of place. But there was nothing, save for the ever-present wards thrumming gently in the background. Emily wasn’t too surprised. It was unlikely, really, that any of the students in the bedroom had enough of a presence to leave a signature floating around for hours.

Shaking her head, she cast a tripwire spell over the bed and keyed it to herself. If anyone, apart from Tiega, went close enough to the bed—and the cabinet—to leave a note, the tripwire would sound the alarm. It wouldn’t trap the perpetrator, unfortunately, but it
would
leave a very tiny trace on their magical field. She’d be able to identify the writer with a quick sweep through the dorms.

The door opened. Tiega stepped back into the room. Emily took a moment to check the spell was working as advertised, then turned to face the younger girl. She didn’t look to be coping well, she saw. Tiega could have hexed—or thumped—anyone who confronted her face-to-face, but fighting a shadow depressed her. Emily found it hard to blame her.

“Nothing,” she said. Tiega shouldn’t be able to sense the tripwire—and Emily wasn’t about to tell her it was there. The fewer people who knew, the greater the chance of catching the writer in the act. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell my parents,” Tiega said. “What if I fail my exams?”

“You have enough time to catch up,” Emily said, as reassuringly as she could. “It’s only the first set of exams.”

“My parents will kill me if I don’t do well,” Tiega said. She sounded bitter. “Jasmine is already ahead of me and Julia is catching up.”

“You only have a year or two of practical magic ahead of her,” Emily pointed out. “And you
do
have more raw power.”

“Power without control is nothing,” Tiega said. “My parents already hate me.”

“No, they don’t,” Emily said. She wasn’t really sure it was true, but it had to be said. “I’m sure they’re proud of you.”

“I’m not,” Tiega said. “They didn’t really want to
keep
me.”

E
MILY HAD HOPED, DEEP IN HER
heart, that everything would return to normal the following morning, that Caleb would join her for breakfast and all would be well with the world. But as she made her way through the day, it became clear that
nothing
had returned to normal overnight. Caleb ate his breakfast with Cirroc, not even looking at her as she entered the dining hall, then sat next to Sven in their shared classes. Emily was aware, all too aware, of other students glancing between her and Caleb, clearly wondering just what had happened between them. By the time classes finally came to an end, she was nursing a growing headache and a sense of bitter resentment, combined with grief and anger.

“You’re quite distracted,” Professor Armstrong said, catching her before she could make her escape. “You may have to replace your hearthstone.”

Emily scowled. The spells she’d attempted to infuse into the hearthstone had damaged it, even though she’d tried hard to keep the power under control. Thankfully, it hadn’t cracked, but she’d need to sand the rock down if she didn’t replace it completely. A damaged stone would weaken her spells, leaving a chink in her defenses a skilled opponent could exploit...