Infinite Regress (32 page)

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“I would also advise dealing with your personal problems,” Professor Armstrong added, sharply. “Anger and hate lead to the dark arts.”

The dark side
, Emily thought. There was some truth in it, too. Spellwork cast with emotion,
tainted
with emotion, could be very dangerous.
I need to talk to Caleb
.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

She walked back up to the dorm, wondering if she should change out of her school robes before dismissing the idea. Caleb needed to know she’d come straight to him... or was that a mistake? She’d used the chat parchment extensively the previous night, discussing the problem with Alassa and Imaiqah, but neither of them had been able to offer her any
good
advice. Maybe it would be better to make him wait, yet she needed to know—now—if they still had a relationship. She could come to terms with losing him, if necessary, but hanging in the open, unsure where she stood, was wearing her down.

And I’m tired
, she thought, as she stopped outside his door.
I didn’t get much sleep last night
.

She knocked, loudly. The door swung open a moment later, revealing Caleb sitting at his desk and Cirroc lying on his bed, gazing up at nothing. Caleb turned slowly, his eyes going wide as he saw her. He
hadn’t
expected her, Emily realized. He’d probably assumed she would expect him to chase her, not the other way around. And maybe that was what she should have done.

“We need to talk,” she said. Alassa—Jade, she suspected—had advised her to be blunt, rather than coy. “Cirroc, can you give us an hour or two to chat?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Cirroc said, sitting up. “Should I leave the two of you alone?”

“Yes,” Emily snapped. Magic boiled around her for a long second, no longer hidden within her wards. Cirroc started backwards, stunned. Just for a second, Emily reflected, all the stories about her had to seem very real indeed. “Leave us alone.”

Cirroc hesitated, then stepped past her with icy dignity and walked through the door, closing it behind him. Emily felt a flicker of shame and guilt—she’d intimidated him, as casually as King Randor had tried to intimidate her—and then forced it down. Caleb still sat at his desk, his face an expressionless mask. Had she been wrong about him? Or was he terrified of showing any weakness in front of her? Or...

“He’ll complain to the housemother,” Caleb observed, finally. “Kicking someone out of his own bedroom.”

Emily snorted. She doubted Cirroc would do any such thing. No matter her reputation, she was still a student, a
younger
student. Cirroc would be too prideful to admit that she’d intimidated him. And even if he wasn’t, she found it hard to care. Madame Rosalinda could bawl her out afterwards, if she wished. Talking to Caleb privately was more important.

But now they were together, she found it hard to speak.

“We need to talk,” she admitted.

“Yes,” Caleb agreed. “We do.”

He wasn’t going to make it easy for her, Emily noted. And part of her didn’t really blame him, even though the rest of her was angry with him. It was hard, so hard, for her to push herself forward. There was a part of her that would be happy to come to a halt, to just stay where she was...

She closed her eyes for a long moment, then cast a series of privacy wards, one after the other. The first set were standard, the type any student learnt in her first year if she wanted to keep any secrets; the remainder, a great deal stronger, had been hammered into her head by Lady Barb and, later, Void. If Gordian was using the school’s wards to keep an eye on her, he wasn’t going to find it very productive.

And if he isn’t
, she thought,
he isn’t going to know that I’ve cast more than one ward.

Caleb’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know that one,” he said, as the last ward fell into place. “Where did you learn it?”

“Lady Barb told me there’d be no dinner until I mastered it,” Emily said. “I can teach you, if you like.”

She finished casting the wards and sat down on his bed, feeling the magic settling uncomfortably around her. It felt as if she were wrapped in invisible cotton wool, pressing in against her body. Caleb looked as comfortable as she felt.

“I need to tell you something,” she said. Perhaps she
should
have told him earlier, even though she’d been worried about his reaction. “And... I need your word it won’t go any further.”

Caleb studied her for a long moment. She wondered if he was going to accuse her, again, of not trusting him, but instead he merely nodded. Emily allowed herself a moment of relief, then swallowed hard. In truth, she wasn’t sure where to begin.

“I... I didn’t come from here,” she said.

Caleb blinked. “From Whitehall? Or the Allied Lands?”

Stupid
, Emily told herself.
How many magicians know that alternate dimensions even exist?

She looked down at her hands for a long moment. Void hadn’t shown any reaction to her arrival, but Lady Barb and Alassa had been astonished. King Randor, when he’d pulled the secret from his daughter’s unwilling lips, had had real problems comprehending what he was being told. The former Grandmaster had been keen to keep the number of people who knew the truth as low as possible, pointing out the dangers of fiddling with interdimensional barriers. If Emily alone had turned the world upside down, who knew what someone with
genuine
training and experience could do?

“I’m not from this world,” she said. She cringed, inwardly. How would Caleb react to
that
little titbit? She was no longer a baroness, nor was she the daughter of a Lone Power. He had to be wondering, right now, just how well he really knew her. “Shadye kidnapped me from
my
world. Void saved my life.”

Caleb stared at her. “Another world?”

Emily nodded. “More or less,” she said. She had no idea how much of the many-worlds theory was accurate, but she was living proof that there was at least
one
alternate dimension. And if there was one, why not hundreds, or thousands, or millions? “Void took me in, found I had magic and sent me to Whitehall.”

“Shadye kidnapped you,” Caleb said. “Why?”

“He felt I could help him,” Emily said. She wanted to explain more, but she didn’t want to discuss possible ways to break through the barriers. “I killed him before he could put me to work.”

“Saving the lives of everyone in the school,” Caleb pointed out.

“It gets worse,” Emily said. She had to force herself to go on. “When I was... when I was back home, I had a very bad experience with men. When we started dating, it was hard for me to kiss you or let you kiss me...”

“I remember,” Caleb said. He sounded grim. “What happened?”

Emily hesitated. It was lucky, she suspected, that she’d told him about Earth before going on to her stepfather or he might have sworn vengeance against Void. At least he wasn’t pushing her away, claiming she’d been defiled forever. There were girls, shamed girls, among the aristocracy of Zangaria who had no hope of marrying, simply because they’d been raped—or given themselves to the wrong man. Caleb was a better man than their fathers.

“It’s not something I want to talk about,” she admitted. “It was never... physical. But it left me feeling vulnerable.”

“You killed two necromancers and a combat sorcerer,” Caleb said. “I’d hardly call you
vulnerable.
”

“It’s not the same,” Emily said. Shadye had almost killed her, but she’d never thought he intended to ravish her first. “I don’t know how to describe it.”

She stared at Caleb for a long moment. “I’m trying to get better,” she added, after a moment. “But I don’t know how long it will be before...”

Her face reddened. She had to force herself to speak. “Before we can go any further.”

Caleb flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Emily said. She reached out and touched his hand, wondering if he would push her away. “I love you, but...”

She had no idea how to explain that she wanted him and, at the same time, she wanted to run as fast and as far as she could. The idea of being naked in front of him was terrifying, even though part of her
wanted
it. And yet, what
was
she going to do on the wedding night? She had no illusions. Caleb would want to consummate the marriage... hell, their marriage wouldn’t even be
legal
until they had sex for the first time. It was why Jade and Alassa had hurried away so quickly after their formal ceremony.

Alassa admitted she was nervous too
, Emily thought.
But she was raised to know she might wind up with someone she neither liked nor loved
.

“I understand,” Caleb said. “But...”

Emily understood
precisely
what he meant. He wanted her too. And that bothered her even as it flattered her.

She closed her eyes in pain, unsure what to say or do. It had been hard enough to kiss him, the first time. There was no way she could lower her defenses so completely, not when they’d had their first real fight only a day ago. And yet... she didn’t want to lose him either. The thought of seeing him with someone else... it gnawed at her. Maybe it would have been easier to decline his offer of a courtship...

You can’t undo the past
, she told herself, sharply.
All you can do is learn from your mistakes and move on
.

“If you don’t want to court me any longer,” she said, despite a sudden tightness in her chest, “I will understand.”

“I do want to court you,” Caleb said. “Emily...”

He reached out and wrapped her in a hug. Emily hugged him back, somehow. It was hard, so hard, to keep herself calm. It was a gentle reassuring hug, not a romantic hug... it scared her almost as much as it reassured her. Had she lost him? Or was he willing to give her time?

And what
, she asked herself for the umpteenth time,
will I do on the wedding night?

“I can wait,” Caleb said, as he released her. “But... it’s hard to know what to do.”

Emily nodded. Imaiqah had once pointed out, rather sarcastically, that boys and girls practically spoke different languages. A man could mean one thing and a woman would hear something entirely different, or vice versa. She could say something to Caleb, in all innocence, which he would hear as an invitation or an insult. It was why she’d been advised to be blunt.

“We have to be open with one another,” she said. “I...”

She broke off as Caleb quirked an eyebrow, feeling her cheeks redden.
She
hadn’t been open with
him
. He had every right to call her on it. But she’d had a reason...

Of course you did
, her own thoughts mocked her.
Everything you did looked right, at the time you did it. But being right at the time doesn’t save you from having to deal with the consequences
.

Caleb leaned forward, his eyes meeting hers. “Are there any more secrets?”

“Not about me,” Emily said. In hindsight, she should have told him earlier, at the same time she’d told Imaiqah and her other friends. But Caleb hadn’t been there. “The others aren’t really mine to share.”

“Good,” Caleb said. “Tell me about your world?”

Emily hesitated. “It’s very different,” she said, finally. “I think you’d hate it.”

She sighed inwardly as she tried to outline the basics. No magic, but technology; no kings and princes ruling by divine right, but democracy and a political elite; countries so big that Zangaria would vanish almost without trace. The Allied Lands were barely larger than Europe and the United States put together. And while
she
had no reason to look back on Earth with any fondness, she knew all too well that much of the Allied Lands would consider it a place of marvels.

“I don’t understand,” Caleb said. “How does it even
work?
”

“Barely,” Emily said. “But it
does
work.”

“And all of your ideas came from Earth,” Caleb said. “You’re reinventing stuff you knew from home.”

Emily laughed. “I haven’t even scratched the surface,” she said. “And there are a great many pieces of technology that will take years to be invented here.”

Caleb cocked his head. “Why?”

“The machines to make the machines that make the machines work will need to be invented first,” Emily explained. “Here...”

She shook her head slowly. “The basic skills—farming, hunting, craftsmanship—are very common here,” she added. “There isn’t a town in Zangaria that doesn’t have a blacksmith or a woodcarver, but most peasants can master those skills for themselves if they wish. On Earth, very few people know how to do such things for themselves. Nearly every family has a computer”—there was no point in trying to explain what a computer was—“but none of them could hope to
build
one, let alone repair it if it went bust.”

Caleb frowned. “There isn’t a farmer who doesn’t know how to mend his tools.”

Emily shrugged. “Their tools are relatively simple,” she said. There was no way to know for sure, but she suspected that a single American state could feed the entire Allied Lands with the produce of its farmland. “On Earth, tools are so complicated they need to be replaced when they break.”

“Madness,” Caleb said.

He didn’t sound as though he believed her, not completely. Emily didn’t blame him. Earth’s technology was completely outside his context. He could understand some parts of her world, if he had ended up there, but other parts would be completely beyond his comprehension.

“We could go for a walk,” Emily suggested, putting the issue aside. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly an hour until dinnertime... although, she supposed, they could always teleport down to Dragon’s Den for dinner. It wasn’t as if she had another appointment with Mistress Danielle for a week or two. “And... and you can’t tell anyone about my world.”

“I understand,” Caleb said. He looked down at the bed for a long moment, then leaned forward. “Emily, have you ever thought about going back and recovering information we could use?”