Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7) (31 page)

“It doesn’t feel that way,” Emily said.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Alassa said. “I didn’t feel like you were doing me a favor, back in First Year. But I think you did.”

Emily felt her face heat. “Thank you,” she said. “Shall we go back to work?”

Alassa nodded and picked up the book. “I just can’t get this spell in Healing,” she admitted. “I should be able to make it work, but it keeps failing...”

“You’re not allowing the magic to shape itself,” Emily said. It reminded her of one of the forbidden spells, one that warped rather than healed. Alassa was closer to reproducing it than she knew. “Lady Barb was saying you needed to help the body, not overpower it.”

“I see,” Alassa said. She shook her head. “If this wasn’t so useful...”

“At least you can rely on yourself,” Emily said. She thought, for a moment, that she understood Master Grey perfectly. “Who else can you count on when you’re alone?”

I
T WASN’T EASY TO TALK TO
the others, Emily discovered, after she finally left Alassa and returned to the dorms. Imaiqah had already guessed the truth, but Pandora was furious and the Gorgon disappointed. By the time Emily managed to escape and make her way to the workroom where Caleb awaited her, she was nursing a headache and feeling tired, depressed and cranky. And, when she walked in, she saw that Caleb had a nasty bruise covering his cheek.

“What happened to you?” she asked, concerned. “Someone hit you?”

“Johan did,” Caleb said, crossly. He sounded oddly reluctant to talk to her, but pushed ahead anyway. “I think we have a problem.”

Emily stared at him. “Johan
hit
you?”

“I hit him back,” Caleb said. Emily was surprised at first, but remembered that Caleb came from Stronghold. Basic combat training had been hammered into his head from Day One, while it was optional at Whitehall. “Someone told him that...that I was taking advantage of you.”

“
What
?”

“Someone told him that I was taking advantage of you,” Caleb repeated. “And that all of this” - he waved a hand at the tiles on the worktable - “was your idea, not mine.”

“That’s absurd,” Emily protested. Johan? She barely
knew
him! God knew he hadn’t spent any time with her outside class. “You’re the one who came up with the idea in
your
Third Year.”

It made no sense. She hadn’t prepared a project in
her
Third Year because she’d had no partner. If the Grandmaster hadn’t put Caleb and her together, she would probably have had to redo Third Year. Everyone
knew
Caleb had had a good idea, he’d just managed to injure himself and scare off his last partner. He certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to copy something from Emily and pass it off as his own work.

But someone might believe it
, Emily thought. Most of her inventions remained secret, but she was credited with inventing everything from a new system of writing letters and numbers to stirrups and steam engines.
If all they know is that I’m a genius, they might think Caleb had stolen the idea from me...

She swore, using a word she’d learned from Lady Barb. “Who told him that...that
lie
?”

Her thoughts flashed to Master Grey, but lying about her...her boyfriend seemed a little petty for him. He could have just piled more detentions on her if he’d wanted to split them up, or suggested she do something else with her time. But then, she
was
meant to do a joint project with Caleb. Preventing them from meeting completely would have been impossible.

She let out a long breath as the answer snapped into place. “Frieda,” she said. “Frieda must have told him.”

Caleb blinked. “Your friend?”

“She’s mad at me,” Emily said. It made sense; Frieda resented Caleb, so she’d manipulated Johan into attacking him. “And...”

She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. But I need to find her.”

“The Grandmaster will know better,” Caleb said. “But if she keeps spreading these lies, Emily, it could be bad.”

Emily nodded. A rumor could flash through Whitehall quicker than a spell - and, no matter how thoroughly one was debunked, it would still stick. Caleb was an outsider even more than she was, a transfer student who’d stayed...he didn’t have the deep bonds of friendship others had formed over the years. If the rumors stuck, and they would, he might find himself in deep trouble. The Grandmaster would definitely know better, but how many others would feel the same way?

“I’m sorry,” she said, running her hand through her hair. They didn’t need this problem, not on top of everything else. “Can we meet again later? I need to find her.”

She gave Caleb a quick kiss and hurried out of the room. There was no point in asking Madame Razz to find Frieda, but Professor Thande was usually just down the corridor, supervising a handful of experiments. As Emily had expected, he didn’t bother to ask
why
she wanted to find Frieda; he just checked the wards and told Emily that Frieda was wandering through the gardens outside the school, near the zoo. Emily nodded, thanked him, and hurried down to the gardens. Surprisingly, they were almost deserted.

Frieda stood in front of a pond, staring into it. Emily cleared her throat; the younger girl spun around and stared at her, then turned and started to run as fast as she could. Silently thanking Master Grey for his lessons, Emily threw a tangle spell after her and sent Frieda falling to the grass. Emily was on top of her before she could break the spell and escape.

“We need to talk,” she said, as Frieda sat up sullenly. “You’ve been avoiding me for
days
.”

“Weeks,” Frieda muttered, looking down at the ground. Emily felt a flicker of guilt as she realized that Frieda had skinned her knee. “I...”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Emily said, softly. “I’m sorry.”

Frieda glanced up at her, resentfully. “I thought you liked me.”

“I did,” Emily said. She corrected herself hastily. “I do.”

“You saved me,” Frieda said. Her face was bright red, tears glimmering in her eyes. “You saved me and you spent time with me and I thought...”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, too.”

“You should be,” Emily said. “Why did you tell lies to Johan?”

Frieda didn’t bother to deny it. “Because he admires you,” she said. “I knew he’d defend you if he thought you were in trouble.”

“I’m not in trouble,” Emily said. She thought of Master Grey - and the reception Alassa was likely to get from her roommates - and wondered if that was entirely true. “Well...not more trouble than usual, at least.”

Frieda smiled, then sobered. “I don’t like Caleb,” she said. “You shouldn’t be kissing him.”

“He’s a decent man,” Emily said. “I didn’t realize you felt that way about me.”

“I thought you did,” Frieda said. “You never hurt me. You treated me as a friend.”

And taking you out to places in Cockatrice must have seemed like a date
, Emily thought, morbidly.
I never saw it
.

“I’m appallingly bad at seeing what other people are feeling,” Emily admitted. “It took me months to realize you were in trouble.”

“At least you noticed,” Frieda said, sullenly. She looked up. “If you’re bad at reading emotions, Emily, could you be wrong about what
Caleb
feels for you?”

Ouch
, Emily thought. It was a nasty thought, all the more so for being quite possible. She might have misread Caleb badly...and if she had, she was likely to leave herself open to something far worse than Nanette’s betrayal and theft of her notes.
But I don’t think I’m wrong
.

“I think that’s different,” Emily said.

Frieda crossed her arms under her knees, as if she expected to be hit. “I’m sorry,” she said, in a flat tone that almost broke Emily’s heart. “I had presumptions above my station, My Lady, and I will not trouble you with them again.”

“Frieda,” Emily began. “I...”

“I humbly offer my submission to you,” Frieda continued. She rose, then fell forward into full prostration. “This unworthy one begs your pardon and accepts whatever punishment you choose to give.”

“Get up,” Emily snapped. It would have been overdone, if she hadn’t been all too aware that Frieda meant every word. Growing up in the Cairngorms, where she had had almost no power, would have taught her to grovel when necessary. But it was disgusting and futile and...it wasn’t
right
. “Get up now!”

Frieda sat back on her haunches, staring down at the ground. “Emily...”

Emily suddenly understood just how Lady Barb must have felt, when Emily had acted younger than her age. The impulse to just smack some sense into the younger girl was almost overpowering. Frieda’s crush had turned into a nightmare, so she’d crawled back into herself...

She knelt down, facing Frieda. “Listen to me, please,” she said. “Look at me.”

Frieda looked up, slowly. “Emily...”

“Listen,” Emily said. “You’re my friend; you’re my sister, in all the ways that matter. I do like you, I do care for you and I
do
want to spend time with you...”

“You spent time with
him
at Cockatrice,” Frieda said.

“I do have to work on the joint project,” Emily pointed out. “Frieda, I like you a great deal...”

“But you don’t want me as a partner,” Frieda said. Her voice hardened again. “I had ideas above my station.”

“I’m not interested in girls,” Emily said. She thought that was true; she’d shied away from both boys and girls on Earth. She’d seen Alassa naked plenty of times and felt nothing beyond abstract admiration. “And are you sure you’re interested in me?”

“I...” Frieda looked down for a long moment, then looked up. “You’re
wonderful
. You saved countless lives.”

And how many people will die in the future,
Emily asked herself,
because of the weapons and concepts I have introduced to the Allied Lands
?

She looked towards the Craggy Mountains and shuddered. Shadye’s lands were there, unprotected; it might not be long, now she’d visited the Dark Fortress, before another necromancer moved into his territory. And then there had been the orcs...Master Grey had been very interested in them, going over everything Emily had seen time and time again, until she felt as though her brain was starting to come apart. He’d pointed out, at the end, that a full-fledged breeding frenzy spelled bad news for the Allied Lands.

We need better weapons and defenses
, she reminded herself, bitterly. The battery felt heavy in her pocket, a mocking reminder of how badly she’d almost messed up over the summer.
I might not be able to kill the third necromancer I meet
.

“I don’t think I’m wonderful,” she said. “I can make mistakes.”

“So can I,” Frieda said. She took Emily’s hand. “Sergeant Miles said that Whitehall is a cork in a bottle. If Shadye had broken through, he would have been able to ravage the lands surrounding Whitehall for hundreds of miles. You stopped him.”

“I still don’t
feel
wonderful,” Emily protested.

“You need a bard singing those ballads about you,” Frieda said, sounding much more like her old self. “There was that guy with the really awful voice at the Faire...”

“No,” Emily said, flatly. She’d heard seven or eight songs written about her - before the broadsheets, bards had been the quickest way to spread news through the Allied Lands - and they were all appallingly bad. Most of them got the facts wrong, in one way or another; the two that were stunningly explicit were horribly embarrassing. “That will
not
boost my confidence.”

Frieda looked doubtful. “Not even the one about...”

“
No
,” Emily insisted. She had no idea which one Frieda meant, but they were
all
embarrassing. “I just need to learn from my mistakes.”

She got up and helped Frieda to stand. “I’m sorry I don’t feel the way you do, but I do like you and I hope we can still be friends.”

Frieda sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for feeling anything,” Emily said. It was hard to wrap her head around the idea of
anyone
finding her attractive. “But I think you do owe Caleb an apology. How many others did you try to get to attack him?”

“No one else,” Frieda said. “Just Johan.”

Thank God
, Emily thought.

“You probably owe him an apology, too,” Emily said. She had no idea which of the two boys was stronger, but Caleb probably had better training. “I’m not sure what happened, but it wasn’t anything good.”

Frieda gave her a sharp look. “How did you know it was me?”

“You were mad at me and Caleb,” Emily said. “I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

“He’ll want to kill me,” Frieda said. “They’ll
both
want to kill me.”

“I don’t think they’ll be very happy, no,” Emily agreed. “Why don’t you spend the next hour thinking of ways you can make it up to them?”

“I’ll try,” Frieda said. “Did...did you ever have a crush on anyone?”

Emily hesitated before shaking her head in negation. She’d been isolated as a child, then her mother’s warnings had echoed in her head when she’d grown into a teenager...romantic feelings were dangerous. Romantic feelings led to being trapped in loveless marriages, with a child from a previous partner. Hell, Emily honestly didn’t know if her biological father and her mother had been married. The one time she’d asked, her mother had subjected her to a screaming fit that left her ears ringing for days.

“No,” she said. “Aurelius” - she played with the bracelet instinctively - “was trying to seduce me, but I wasn’t tempted.”

Frieda shuddered. “But he was
old
!”

“I don’t think that would have mattered,” Emily said. The hell of it was that Aurelius had tried to seduce her with knowledge, rather than anything more physical. It might have worked if she hadn’t understood what he was trying to do. The idea of disappearing into Mountaintop and forgetting about the rest of the world was very attractive. “He wanted me for my mind.”