Infinite Regress (38 page)

“Enough,” Gordian said. He glanced at Professor Lombardi. “Can you get him out?”

“I don’t know,” Professor Lombardi said. “Grandmaster, this isn’t a freeze spell. I’ve no idea how he’s even caught in it.”

Gordian ran his hands through his hair. “If trying to teleport out was enough to shake the entire school...”

His voice trailed off, but Emily knew what he meant. Whitehall was perched on the brink, between safety and utter disaster. If they stayed where they were, their doom was assured... but if they tried to fight their way out, they might only precipitate the final disaster, triggering the final destruction of the school. And because they knew so little of the wards—and of how the school had been built—they would end up experimenting with something equally disastrous.

We’re a car, trapped halfway over a cliff
, she thought.
One wrong move will send us plummeting, but the cliff face is already crumbling. And staying where we are will also kill us.

Gordian turned to Emily. “Sergeant Miles will escort the pair of you back to the classroom,” he said. “Get a good night’s sleep. You’ll need it.”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said.

Professor Lombardi cleared his throat as Emily and Caleb headed for the door. “I think he’s trapped in a twisted dimensional fold,” he said, softly. “If we poke it, Grandmaster, it might be enough to free him.”

“And let the poor bastard die,” Gordian said.

“Except doing that might do further damage to the school,” Sergeant Miles said, grimly. He held up a hand before Gordian could say a word. “He’s trapped forever in a moment of time.”

“He’s
aware
,” Gordian said. His voice grew stronger. “I can
feel
it. He knows what’s happened to him.”

Emily frowned. Gordian had that feeling
too
?

“We can’t take the risk,” Sergeant Miles said. His voice held no give at all. “There’s no way we can justify risking everyone else in the school...”

Another quiver ran through the building. Emily saw Professor Rooihemp’s body twisting in strange directions and realized, in a moment of horror, what was about to happen. She put up a shield, just as the body disintegrated, throwing a sheet of blood and gore over the hall. Gordian and Sergeant Miles had raised shields of their own, but Professor Lombardi was drenched in blood and looked ghastly. Emily heard Caleb retching behind her and had to swallow, hard, to keep from joining him. Blood dripped down the edge of her shield and pooled on the stone floor.

“Tell everyone that this chamber is to remain sealed,” Gordian said, harshly. He sounded deeply shocked. Emily didn’t blame him. She’d seen death before, but she’d never seen anyone ripped apart by warped dimensions. “And spread the word. No one is to attempt to teleport out again.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Miles said. “I’ll make sure everyone knows.”

Gordian threw a sharp look at Emily. “Go clean up, then see to your charges,” he ordered. “And not a word about this to
anyone
.”

Emily nodded. For once, she wasn’t inclined to argue.

T
HE CLASSROOM LOOKED ODD WITH THE
desks pressed against the far wall and the chairs piled atop them, clearing a space for thirty first-year girls and their mentors. She waved at Melissa as she entered the room, then looked around for her own charges. Jasmine and Lillian were talking in one corner, their voices hushed; Adana, Julia and Dulcet were playing some kind of card game with four other girls. Only Tiega was alone, reading a book as she sat hunched against the wall. Emily’s heart went out to the younger girl: she felt a pang of bitter guilt that she’d yet to catch the letter-writer. That... person, she vowed to herself, was
not
going to get away with it forever.

“Emily,” Melissa said. She’d been helping one of the other girls with her textbook, but she rose to her feet as Emily walked over to her. “There’s been no real trouble, save for a couple of idiots who tried to sneak out of the room.”

Emily winced as she followed Melissa’s pointing finger. Sneaking out might be a grand old tradition, but only when the only real danger involved being caught by a prowling tutor. Now, with the corridors warped and twisted and classrooms relocated at random, it would be all too easy to get lost—or killed. The two girls standing in the corner, their feet firmly stuck to the floor, would be embarrassed and humiliated, but at least they were alive and well.

“Ouch,” she said. Her watch insisted that it was early evening, but it felt more like the middle of the night. “Did they get something to eat?”

“The staff brought ‘round sandwiches,” Melissa said, pointing to a tray. Her lips quirked into a smile as she nodded at Adana. “One of yours threw a terrible fit until I threatened to silence her. The others were quite well behaved.”

“She was probably trying to embarrass you,” Emily said. Adana
was
Melissa’s cousin, after all, even though the older girl had been disowned. “Do you want me to have a word with her?”

“She’s always been a little spoilt,” Melissa said. “The thought of not having what she wants for dinner... horror of horrors!”

Emily nodded. Melissa was probably right. Adana was almost certainly the most privileged girl in her class, even though she wasn’t the only child of a magical family. The others would be more used to eating what they got and feeling glad to have it, particularly Dulcet and Jasmine. They hadn’t always had enough to eat.

“Let me know if she gives you a hard time,” Emily said. Her own stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The rations she’d been given lay uneaten in her knapsack. “I’ll just have a bite to eat, then I’ll join my group.”

The lights seemed dimmer, somehow, as she walked over to the younger girls. Adana’s game of cards was growing louder, the girls laughing and shrieking as they played with savage intensity. They were scared, Emily realized; they were scared and trying to hide it. She watched the game for a long moment, then looked at Jasmine and Dulcet. It didn’t look as if they needed help or support. Finally, she sat down next to Tiega. The younger girl barely looked at her.

“Hi,” Emily said, gently. “How are you?”

“Professor Thande had me scrubbing caldrons yesterday,” Tiega said, tonelessly. “He was mad at me for blowing up two potions in a row. I just couldn’t focus on what I was
doing
.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Emily said. Tiega was in trouble, she knew, yet she wasn’t sure how to help. Asking a tutor to help track down the letter-writer would be more than an admission of failure. It would be useless. “Did he promise to supervise when you tried to brew the potion again?”

Tiega shook her head, mournfully. Emily winced. That was
not
a good sign. She promised herself that, as soon as they regained contact with the outside world, she would go to Professor Thande and request permission to supervise Tiega’s brewing herself. It was unlikely the professor would agree, despite his somewhat lax attitude to safety, but it might convince him to give Tiega another chance. Denying her the
option
of trying to brew the potion for a second time suggested, very strongly, that he’d given up on her.

“We’ll see what we can do,” she said, wrapping her arm around the younger girl and trying to give her an affectionate squeeze. Tiega showed no reaction at all, neither leaning in towards Emily nor trying to lean away. Was she so
starved for affection that she didn’t even recognize it when it was offered? “And your other classes?”

“Not good,” Tiega said. She smiled, suddenly. “But I did enjoy Magical Creatures. The unicorns were lovely.”

“They are,” Emily agreed. She smiled at the memory of having the creatures nuzzling her palm, even though she generally disliked horses. They’d shown no hesitation in approaching her either, although they’d been reluctant to allow Imaiqah anywhere near them. “Did they let you pet them?”

Tiega colored. “They did,” she said. “I...”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said. She meant it, too. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“As if they wouldn’t,” Tiega said, bitterly. “Who would be interested in me?”

Emily kept her thoughts to herself. Tiega was the daughter of a magical family—the youngest, perhaps, but still a daughter. She might be ugly, she might be bad-tempered, yet there would be no shortage of suitors after she completed her first year at Whitehall. Her parents would probably accept the first serious offer for their daughter’s hand, then arrange the marriage for after Tiega’s graduation... if they let her stay in Whitehall. God alone knew what they’d do if Tiega got expelled.

“I thought the same way myself,” Emily said, instead.

“You’re beautiful and smart,” Tiega said.

Emily shook her head. No one had called her beautiful before she’d come to the Nameless World... and even afterwards, it had been a long time before anyone other than a maid had said it. And who could trust a maid’s opinion when their livelihoods often depended on flattering their employers? Alassa might have insisted that Emily was pretty, yet Emily found it hard to believe her. Being
beautiful
had never been part of her self-image.

“Maybe not that pretty,” she said, finally. “Really.”

There was a tap on the door, which opened to reveal Madame Razz. “Get into your sleeping bags now,” she ordered, bluntly. “And remember,
don’t
go sneaking out at night.”

“That’s not a joke,” Emily warned, as she chivvied the girls into their sleeping bags. “If we catch you trying to sneak out, we’ll freeze you until tomorrow morning.”

Adana muttered something, just loudly enough for Emily to hear the sound without actually managing to make out the words. She glowered at the younger girl anyway, while Melissa freed the two prisoners and pointed them to their sleeping bags. Both girls looked a little cramped, unsurprisingly. Standing still for so long would be painful. Emily winced in sympathy, then shook her head as she looked at her charges. Now that the card games were over, and the books had been put away, they seemed terrified. They might not know the truth behind their predicament, but the prospect of death hung over them like a shadow...

“Jasmine,” she said, quietly. “Why don’t you sing us a song?”

Jasmine frowned. “My aunt told me not to show off.”

Emily bit down the response that came to mind. Jasmine’s singing had been the highlight of the Faire, as far as
she
was concerned. And Jasmine had earned more, she suspected, than many of the other non-magical performers. What was that, she asked herself, if it
wasn’t
showing off?

“Your singing may help your schoolmates fall asleep,” she said, instead. “It would be very useful.”

Jasmine nodded, then sat upright and started to sing a song Emily vaguely remembered from the first Faire, back when her life had been—marginally—less complicated. The words echoed in the air as the song grew lighter, a sweet little ballad about a magician who fell in love with a mermaid and ended up building a home with her by the seaside. She couldn’t help feeling a tear at the corner of her eye as Jasmine finished the first song and moved smoothly into another, a bolder ditty about an old washerwoman who challenged a magician king to a battle of wits and beat him handily. It sounded a little like a warped version of
The Tortoise and the Hare
, Emily decided, one where the Tortoise cheated constantly and somehow came out ahead.

But that fits
, she thought.
How could a washerwoman win fairly
?

She was reluctant to ask Jasmine to stop, after a sad little song about a family that had been forced to flee the necromancers and a lovelorn song about a couple that could never be together, but the clock was slowly ticking towards midnight. Half the girls were asleep, she noted as she gently put Jasmine to bed and set the wards, before climbing into her own sleeping bag. She hoped—prayed—that none of the girls would try to leave the room, even to answer the call of nature. The buckets by the far wall, barely hidden by a privacy ward, might be embarrassing, but they were safer.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Melissa said, sitting down near the door. “I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

Emily blinked in surprise, then nodded in understanding.
Some
of the students
were
going to try to sneak out of the classrooms. They’d been told, from day one, that sneaking around was fine, as long as they didn’t get caught. She would be surprised if some of the boys didn’t see the whole affair as a chance to sneak into the female dorms and cause havoc, despite the certainty of punishment. She’d heard enough horror stories from Alassa and Imaiqah—when their defensive magic classes had gone on field trips—not to take the prospect lightly.

“Fine,” she said, lying down and closing her eyes. She would be cranky when she woke, but it couldn’t be helped. “Wake me at four bells.”

Sleep didn’t come easily, despite the meditations she’d been taught. She’d always thought of Whitehall as solid and reliable, even though the school had been invaded by everything from mad necromancers to demons. Whitehall had always felt
safe
to her, the first place she’d ever felt safe. She’d never been able to lose that impression, despite Nanette spying on her and the Mimic hunting students and devouring their souls. Now... now she knew, all too well, that the walls could crumble at any moment. They could die as easily as Shadye had, once she’d boxed him up in the pocket dimension...

Don’t think about it
, she told herself. Despite her exhaustion, her mind refused to settle and allow her to rest.
Just try to sleep
.

... Emily stands in front of the crystalline console, a book in her left hand as she rests her right hand against the crystal. Her feet are resting in blood, a reddish glow pervading the room as she does... something... to the spellware. It dances around her, bobbing back and forth as she issues her commands...

... A... creature... sits on her shoulders, peering up at her with malicious eyes. No matter how closely she looks at it, it refuses to take on solid form. All she can sense from it is unblinking malice and a dark, sadistic glee...