Elves and Escapades (Scholars and Sorcery Book 2) (19 page)

The window fractures into radiating cracks.

“Let me try. I feel better.” I clamber to my feet, hesitate a little, then take off my blazer and wrap it fully around one arm and fist. I draw my arm back, and punch the centre of the cracks, as hard as I can.

“You’ve got it!” whoops Esther. Working together, we clear the rest of the glass.
 

“Well done,” says Rosalind, her voice barely above a whisper. She is drooping like a wilted weed. “Now to get down.”
 

“And therein lies the rub.” Esther stares down out the window, down at the gravel path far below. I notice that there is no despair in her voice. I feel the same way. Now the window is broken and the elf gone, it feels like only a matter of time.

“We need to call for help,” I say, slowly, thinking.

“Who is out there to hear us? Except… that thing.” Kitty shudders.

 
I chew on my lower lip. After all, I can call for help. The night spirits may have fled, and are unlikely to come again, but there is one beast who would always heed my Call. The stables are a long way, of course, but Ember and I are bonded, in a strange and powerful way. I feel certain he will hear me, if I only Call loud enough.

“Miss Roberts keeps Ember shut in by magic,” I say aloud. “But if he senses me in distress, what will he do?”

Rosalind straightens a little. “He will kick, and flare off, and Miss Roberts will wake and go out to him to see what’s wrong. Will she think to set him free?”

“She might. Let’s just hope she doesn’t shoot any helpless brownies or burglars while she’s out there.” We exchange wavering smiles. “Well, here goes, old girl.”

“I’ll help.” She gets to her feet with Esther’s help and, uncaring of Diana or anyone else, I wrap my arms around her for mutual support. Then I think of Ember, his beauty, his magnificence, the fragile, leaping burning spirit of him, fill my heart and mind with him, and let my soul call out to him to come,
come, I need you, come
…

At first, I don’t think I can do it. Sweat stands out on my skin, from the fire or from the strain. My eyes are streaming from the smoke. At last I catch it, the faint warm flickers of Ember’s mind.

“Come,” I plead aloud. “I need you—come!”

I feel his urgency in return as his fiery mind tries to surge to meet me. Then the connection is lost.

Rosalind sighs, a faint weary breath. “Was it enough?”

“Yes.” I’m sure of it. “Now, we wait.”

It seems a very, very long time, the heat growing. The five of us sit as close as we can to the broken window, greedily breathing in the cold air, talking in desultory ways of other possible solutions just in case… in case… Every now and then we scream for help, our cries falling on the empty night air. In the end we sit holding hands, Esther, myself, Rosalind, Diana, Kitty, all in an unbroken line.

And we wait. I let my eyes droop. Every now and then I reach out again, but… nothing.

I start to voice my despair, and he comes.

I can feel Ember’s presence bursting in a glorious triumphant flurry in my head at the same time I hear Rosalind cry out: “Sunflame! Oh, Sunflame!”

I open my eyes. “Miss Roberts!”

The little alicorn reaches us first, beating her tiny wings, steam flying from her as she whickers excitedly. Then my beautiful, magnificent pegasus, treading the air, and almost as welcome and loved, Miss Roberts’ lined, grim face above him.

“Ember thought you wanted us, Charley,” she says, curtly. “I’ll save asking what on earth you are doing here for later. Hand that poor child to me.”

Our combined efforts manage to haul Diana up over the window somehow, although she is sobbing and hysterical at the thought of climbing out over the void. She clings desperately to Miss Roberts, eyes squeezed shut in terror.

“I can take one more, and then I’ll be back in two ticks of the clock.”

“Esther, I think you should go,” Rosalind says. “No, don’t argue, just go!” She pushes my friend towards the window. “Now, Kitty, you’re no bigger than me. Do you think you could be very brave, and. . . sort of hang off the baby? She’s too little to support you on her back.”

Kitty is white as snow. She nods airily, anyway, and waves to us. She has plenty of pluck, that kid. She boosts herself over the edge clasps her arms around Sunflower’s neck, and doesn’t shriek even when Sunflame drops several feet before managing strong enough wing beats to slow her descent.
 

As soon as Sunflame comes within four feet of the ground Kitty lets go and drops, to save Sunflame’s delicate legs. Loads of pluck, as I said. Miss Peters has already climbed to the ground and deposited Diana unceremoniously in Esther’s arms, and Ember is making his way back up to us.

“Rosalind, if you’d died because of me. . .” Not caring about the people on the ground, I grab her shoulders and kiss her, then pull her protectively close. Let them comment, if they like. A certain amount of schoolgirl sentiment is only to be expected between friends at a moment like this.

“Not because of you. I make my own choices.”
 

“I love you.”

“Charley, dear.”

It’s all Rosalind says, and her weight is suddenly fully supported by my arms. Her eyes are horribly open, the irises rolled back into her head, but there is fragile breath moving her chest and her heart is racing.

I know the next nightmarish minutes will be in my dreams for a long time to come. Climbing out of that window, over the broken glass, onto a saddle in mid air, with an unconscious girl in my arms, takes everything in me. Without Ember actively helping me, I don’t think I could have managed it.

When he lands, less elegantly than usual, Miss Roberts catches Rosalind out of my arms. “All right, old girl?” she asks briefly.

“She’s been Healing,” I say, equally briefly.

“Right. Well, I need to get her to the San. and under Matron’s care for the moment, and call an ambulance from the next town. And a fire engine. Can you girls walk back if I take Ember?”

Rosalind, rousing from her faint, lifts her head. “I’m staying with Charley,” she says, stubbornly.

“Not on your life, child,” Miss Roberts says. “Think you’re in a condition to fight me?”

“I should warn you that you’ve finally met a stronger character than yourself, sweetheart,” I chide. Rosalind, bless her, actually manages to giggle at me before she closes her eyes and settles back into Miss Roberts’ embrace.

The other four of us stand watching as my pegasus takes the two of them winging back to school, Sunflame dancing in the air around them. Then we sigh and look at each other.

“I quite liked that old place,” Kitty says, ruefully looking at the church. I glance sideways at her. Her usual golden-red beauty is a mess, her lungs and eyes must be aching as much as mine are, yet she’s already regained some of her buoyancy. I envy her.

“Let’s get away. . . or crawl again, if we must. What a load of crocks and invalids we are,” Esther says, cheerfully. “I feel like I could curl up in the San. myself for a week. Oh, well, then. Care to escort me, Charles?” She holds out an arm.

“My pleasure, fair maiden.” I fondly grin at her, despite the pounding agony in my head. We turn towards the school, only to halt at the sound of furious crying.

“Oh, Di, please don’t!” Kitty says desperately, rubbing Diana’s back. “It will all be mended soon. You’ll see.”

I look down at Diana. I have hated her for a long time. It’s because of her that Rosalind is unconscious in Miss Roberts’ arms. She must be in pain, and terrified, and she’s gone through more for our foolishness this night than any of us, except perhaps Rosalind, has.

“Come along, Diana, dear,” I say to her, in the same gentle voice I used with the injured alicorn filly, hauling her to her feet. “Let’s get you home to bed.” I wrap an arm around her waist.

Diana gives a kind of choked sob, then leans against me. I look over her head to Esther, who is watching me with a kind of wryly tender half smile.

“Sometimes, this particular child wishes she was not quite so self sufficient,” she says, which is, I think, a queer thing to say. “Come, ladies, let’s go home.”

Together, we slowly make our way back down the path and along the road, to Fernleigh Manor, which is already lit up and awake, waiting for us.

eight

A
ND
F
OREVER
A
FTERWARDS

“BUT WHAT HAPPENED to Di?”

I bite my lip, knowing that Rosalind won’t like this part of the story. I don’t want to worry her; she has only been brought back to school from hospital today, and I am only allowed to visit the invalid on the solemn promise to Matron that I wouldn’t excite her. I squeeze her hand reassuringly as I speak.

“Well, as I said, we all spent the next day or two in the San., resting up. Not that Kitty seemed to need it—I take my oath that child is made of indiarubber.” I peep at her, looking for a smile, but Rosalind is watching me seriously from behind her glasses. She has her old, round spectacles on again; the fashionable new frames are, I suppose, in the ruins of the church. “Anyway, at some point Diana was asked to dress and went to Miss Carroll’s office, and I suppose it meant her parents had arrived to take her home, because we didn’t see her again at all. Not even Kitty or Valerie had a chance to say goodbye.”
 

I take a slow, defeated breath. “I guess Fernleigh Manor is not the school to have the distinction of keeping Diana, after all. I don’t know if her parents will find her another school, especially not for less than two terms. I feel—I feel horrid about it, Rosalind. Miss Carroll asked me to look after her, and I messed up.” I swallow. “I didn’t even try very hard.”
 

“Perhaps it’s for the best, after all,” Rosalind says, surprising me. “I think Diana’s trouble has always been that she’s in too much of a hurry to grow up. She hated school life, and she didn’t want a career. Maybe being at home and starting on grownup life is the best thing that can happen to her.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” I say, still rather surprised. I had expected Rosalind to be all full of sympathetic tears for her friend, not thoughtful like this.

 
“I’ll write to Mother,” Rosalind says, decisively. “She ought to be able to help Diana quite a bit, if I ask her. With introductions and invitations to parties and things, I mean.”

For a moment, despite my unhappiness over Diana’s expulsion, I feel a prickle of anger that, for all her bad behaviour, Diana is getting exactly what she always wanted out of her friendship with Rosalind. It doesn’t seem fair.

Then I shrug, and let it go. Diana can use her Charms and Glamour to hunt down a rich and titled husband with pointed ears and blue blood, for all I care. I am the one who has the love of Rosalind, sitting up in bed propped on pillows, her subtly shining bobbed hair spread in a halo around her face.
 

“What about you? Did you tell Miss Carroll that you rescued me? Did it help?”

“It was entirely my fault you were in danger in the first place!” The words rush out. “Miss Carroll told me—oh, she made me feel like the lowest worm. She said she’d trusted me with grownup responsibilities as Games Captain and Senior Prefect, and that only a foolish child would deal with a crisis by rushing off herself instead of contacting the right authority.”

“That’s so unjust!” Rosalind glows pink with outrage on my behalf.

I take advantage of the closed San. Door to lift her hand to my lips for a kiss. “No, darling heart, it’s perfectly just. I deliberately went out of school bounds and I took three other girls with me, including a lower former. I disgraced myself utterly. Most dreadful of all, I made the situation much, much worse. Miss Carroll could have dealt with it properly. Instead, I made a mess out of the entire thing, and you and Diana were badly hurt as a result.” I swallow. “She was right to take the Captaincy and my Prefect badge away from me.”

“Oh, Charley darling! She didn’t!” Rosalind presses my hand in at in dismay. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t notice your pins were gone.”

“Of course you didn’t. You’re blind as a bat,” I say, trying to smile. Losing the Games Captaincy has been an awful blow. I worked so hard with the little ones and the last hockey matches of term are coming up; besides which, I was planning to coach some promising girls from the Fifth with an eye to making my replacement ready. Worst of all, I have been exposed to the juniors,
my
juniors, as undeserving to lead them. I can’t pretend it’s not a fair punishment for my recklessness and irresponsibility. It still hurts.
 

“It’s not so bad, old girl. It’s only a temporary arrangement. If I behave myself and keep my nose clean, I may get my pins back next term. And for now, Corona won’t do a bad job as Captain.”

Rosalind isn’t fooled by my bright tone. She holds my hand very tightly.

“The worst of it,” I say, “is that I’ve completely ruined Cecily’s chances of winning her precious School Banner in her year as Head Girl. Five girls from one house out of bounds at night is not something to be overlooked.”