Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (20 page)

“Magic,” Emily said. “You’re not just producing magic, you’re controlling its flow perfectly.”

She picked up the third and final wooden spoon, embedded a spell within the wood and passed it to Julianne. “Pretend you’re brewing a potion,” she said, “and let the magic glide into the spoon.”

Julianne nodded, holding the spoon as if she were about to dip it into the cauldron. Emily braced herself, hastily setting up a pair of protective wards, but this time the spell worked perfectly. The end of the spoon began to glow with torchlight, casting an eerie pale radiance into the air. Julianne stared at it, then started to laugh in childlike delight. Emily smiled as the light winked out, knowing that Julianne would treasure that memory for the rest of her life. She could do magic!

“That’s wonderful,” Julianne said. She sobered, sharply. “My father won’t want to see it, will he?”

“I don’t think so,” Emily said, dryly. She reached out with her senses, but felt only hints of magic surrounding Julianne. Whitehall would probably miss them altogether as long as Julianne was careful. “Don’t do it in front of him, all right?”

“I won’t,” Julianne said. She took a breath. “What else can you teach me?”

“Quite a bit,” Emily said. She looked at the cauldron. “Have you ever considered experimenting with other ingredients?”

“I’ve never had the time,” Julianne admitted. “When I wasn’t brewing, I was tending the sick or injured, helping to cook food or clean the castle.”

Emily felt a stab of sympathy mixed with guilt. Julianne had always been out of place, neither one of the magicians nor one of the wives or serving girls. Her father clearly hadn’t known quite what to do with her. She made a mental note to convince Whitehall to ensure that Julianne could take an apprentice of her own, someone who could help take some of the burden of brewing off her shoulders and give her more free time to experiment. If this was the birth of alchemy, Julianne definitely needed more time to develop the scientific method ...

“You could always try to teach Eldora,” she said. “She’ll need
something
to keep her mind off everything that happened to her.”

“I could try,” Julianne said. “But she’s
old
.”

“No one is too old to learn,” Emily countered. Eldora was old, true, but she deserved a second chance at life. The thought of letting Master Gila cast a long shadow—even in death -- was unpleasant. “Ask her, if she’s willing to learn.”

Julianne didn’t look pleased. Eldora was at least fifteen years older than her, perhaps more—she wouldn’t take kindly to being taught by a young girl. And Julianne wouldn’t carry the natural authority of her father or one of the other masters. But it was a good thought.

“My father may insist on selecting the candidate,” Julianne mused. She frowned as another thought struck her. “Emily ... what would happen if the candidate had no magic?”

“Some of the potions wouldn’t work,” Emily said. There
were
ways, Lady Barb had said, to use high-magic ingredients to kick-start the process, but she doubted Julianne could get her hands on dragon scales or basilisk eyes. “Others would, just not as well as they would have done with magic.”

“Then we’d need a girl with magic,” Julianne said. She shook her head. “Is there a test?”

There
was
, Emily knew, but that hadn’t been developed—wouldn’t be developed—for hundreds of years. Or so she thought ... it was hard to say what had been developed and then lost between Whitehall’s era and her arrival in the Nameless World. But anything created at Whitehall had a good chance of surviving the years to come.

And blowing a hole in the timeline, if it wasn’t meant to happen
, Emily mused. Not knowing was worse than knowing too much.
And what will happen then?

“I don’t think so,” she lied.

“I could look for a girl fathered by a magician,” Julianne said, finally. Emily nodded in agreement. Magic ran in the blood, after all; Julianne was very much her father’s daughter. “If there are any reports of ... odd things ... happening around her, consider accepting her as an apprentice. If not ... I can teach her the basics and see if she can do the more advanced brews. ”

“Good idea,” Emily said.

“Try to teach two or three girls at the same time,” she added, thoughtfully. “The basic recipes should work for that—I think. And then those girls can teach two or three others, each.”

Julianne stared at her. “But the secrets ...”

“Will be useless if they die with you,” Emily said. She knew it could be done. Professor Thande had taught fifteen to twenty students at a time, despite the risk of accidents. Emily suspected she’d go mad very quickly if she’d had to teach so many students in a large classroom. “This way, you will have dozens of apprentices instead of just one or two.”

And
, she added silently, as Julianne started brewing another potion,
the groundwork for teaching more than one person at a time will be laid
.

“I
WAS WONDERING WHEN YOU WERE
going to come visit me,” Master Drake said, as Emily stepped into his office. He was seated behind a desk, studying a leather-bound book; he motioned to a chair on the other side of the desk and watched as she sat down. “You’ve visited Master Reaper and Master Keldor over the last four days, haven’t you?”

Emily nodded as she took the proffered seat. She would have been surprised if Master Drake
hadn’t
known she was moving from master to master, in-between helping Master Wolfe with his plans to tap the nexus point and teaching Julianne several new spells. Master Reaper hadn’t had much to offer her—he’d barely spoken a word to her—but Master Keldor had been happy to teach her things she hadn’t wanted to know about the uses and abuses of dead bodies, including how a magician could fake his death for a short period. Perhaps leaving Master Gila’s body alone for several days before cremating him hadn’t been a mistake after all.

She pushed the thought aside with an effort and studied Master Drake with interest. Bernard had admitted to being scared of him—not without reason—and Robin had outright told her that the man had an odd sense of humor. Emily wouldn’t have cared to meet
anyone
who thought that turning people into animals was funny, particularly without the carefully-crafted prank spells she’d learned in her first year of studies, but she had no choice. She had a theory—and an idea she wanted to try—and she needed Master Drake to help her do it.

He was tall, easily the tallest person in the commune. His face was pinched and sallow, as if he were constantly sucking on a lemon; his eyes seemed fixed on her face, as if he was determined to see who would blink first. The magic surrounding him didn’t feel anything like as tainted as Master Gila’s—there was no trace of red in his eyes—but it was clearly powerful. And, if half of what she’d been told about him was true, he might well rival Whitehall for power.

“I’ve been told you practice transmutation,” she said, carefully. “I ...”

“A remarkable piece of intelligence,” Master Drake interrupted. There was a faint, but clearly audible sneer in his voice. “Who could
possibly
have told you that, I wonder?”

“They say you can change lead into gold,” Emily continued, ignoring the jibe. “How do you do
that
?”

“Magic,” Master Drake said. He smirked. “You were expecting a different answer?”

“I would have liked to hear how you did it,” Emily said.

“And I would like to hear how you turned Bernard into a frog,” Master Drake said. “Was it something like this?”

He lifted his hand and threw a spell at her. Emily nearly fell backwards as her protections shivered under the impact, threatening to shatter into nothingness as they strove to break up and dispel the spell before it was too late. There was enough power, she sensed, to do much worse than merely turn her into a frog. Master Drake’s spell would strip her of humanity too, trapping her as a frog until he chose to release the spell. It was hard, so hard, to deflect enough of the spell to take it apart, but somehow she made it work ...

... And then the spell simply dissolved back into the ether.

Master Drake inclined his head, one magician to another. “Your protections are impressive,” he said, sounding as if he would sooner have had teeth pulled without anesthetic than admit it. “I have never seen the like.”

“Your spell was powerful, but blunt,” Emily said. She refused to show him just how badly his spell had damaged her protections, even though she wasn’t sure she could hold off another such spell. “My protections broke it into nothingness.”

“So they did,” Master Drake said. He gave her a considering look. “And you managed to turn Bernard into a frog?”

“Like this,” Emily said.

She shaped the spell in her mind and hurled it at him, but she wasn’t too surprised when he blocked it. Master Drake might not have her protections—indeed, she wasn’t sure he had
any
protections—yet he did have a great deal of raw power. And her spell was actually quite fragile. It wasn’t designed to survive almost any level of resistance.

“Impressive,” Master Drake said. “And what do you have to offer me”—he gave her a lewd wink—“in exchange for a look at one of
my
spells?”

Emily felt her cheeks redden and reminded herself, sharply, that he was trying to get under her skin. She supposed she should be glad that his had been the only lewd suggestion aimed at her—she’d heard the serving girls being teased by the magicians—but it was still irritating, a reminder that she didn’t quite fit in. He wouldn’t have said that to Bernard, would he? Or to his own apprentice.

“I can show you something very interesting,” Emily said. “And I believe it will be worth your while.”

Master Drake studied her for a long moment. “And if it
isn’t
worth my while?”

“It will be,” Emily assured him.

“I will be making complaints to your master if it isn’t,” Master Drake said. He gave her a strikingly savage smile. “And you will not enjoy the consequences.”

Emily nodded. “Show me your spell,” she said. She reached into her bag and produced a piece of firewood she’d taken from the pile, placing it gently on the desk. “Turn this into gold.”

Master Drake eyed her darkly, then held his hand over the firewood and cast the spell. Emily watched, tasting the spellwork, as the wood shimmered and turned to gold. The spell—like Master Gila’s spells—drained a great deal of power, more than she would have expected. She doubted she could have cast the spell back in her fourth year, let alone her third. And casting it repeatedly would have been impossible without her boosted magic.

“Impressive,” she said, finally.

She picked up the golden branch and examined it, thoughtfully. Permanent transfiguration was difficult, certainly when every magician in the world learnt how to cancel spells in their first year of schooling. It wasn’t a bad idea—she knew she would have had real problems if she hadn’t been able to cancel spells—but it could be frustrating. There were students from poorer families who could have made themselves better clothes, if they hadn’t known the spells could be cancelled at any moment.

“One would hope so,” Master Drake said. “It took me years to grasp that spell.”

“I imagine it did,” Emily said. “The sheer level of power you used ...”

Master Drake preened. “I am very powerful,” he said. “And I am hardly
insane
...”

It will come
, Emily thought. She’d suspected it from the first spell and the second had confirmed it. Master Drake’s spells had as much slop as anything she’d seen from Master Gila. She wasn’t sure just how old Master Drake was—she’d have placed him in his thirties—but it wouldn’t be long before the slop started to affect his mind.
And then you’ll start losing your grip on reality
.

“I trust you found that interesting,” Master Drake said. His voice hardened suddenly. “And what do you have to show me?”

“Master Wolfe has been working on the fundamental ...
rules
... for casting spells,” Emily said, carefully. “He’s been using his work to rewrite spells.”

“A pointless waste of time,” Master Drake said, dismissively. “I
do
trust you have something more interesting to show me?”

“It is far from a waste of time,” Emily said, nettled. She’d spent five years learning to analyze and rewrite spellware, knowing it would give her much more flexibility than merely casting and recasting common spells. “As you can see ...”

She took a sheet of parchment out of her bag and carefully outlined Master Drake’s original spell, then showed how it could be rewritten to use far less power. Master Drake watched expressionlessly—his eyes didn’t blink once, as far as she could tell—as she finished her work, then cast the spell. The entire desk turned to gold.

Master Drake said a word she didn’t recognize as he jumped backwards, then poked and prodded at the golden desk. Emily could sense the magic field leaping around him as he worked, testing the gold carefully. The golden stick suddenly reverted to wood, followed by the desk itself. Master Drake looked up, his eyes dark. There was something ugly in them that made Emily want to tighten her protections. And yet she didn’t want to have to fight another master ...

“Explain,” he ordered.

“You’re pushing far too much power into the spell,” she said. Part of the reason she’d had so much trouble handling his spell had been because the spell was massively overpowered. He might not realize it, but there were dozens of redundancies -unnecessary redundancies—built into the spellwork. “You can cast it with much less power.”

Master Drake reached out with astonishing power and caught her arm. “Why?”

Emily resisted the urge to pull back. “Because you are using brute force,” she said. “And it is working, but it drains your power. The spells you use are grossly inefficient.”

She sucked in her breath as Master Drake let go of her. Whitehall had kept her busy casting spells every morning, saving her from having to expend or store magic, but Master Drake might have the same problem if he managed to reduce the amount of magic he used for each spell. Perhaps Master Gila had had that problem too. Emily had suffered nasty headaches for several months after the duel, when her reserves had grown too high for her to handle them safely; she dreaded to think what would have happened if she hadn’t kept expending magic.