Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (31 page)

And he’s defying his master by talking to me
, she thought.
Master Chambers would not be pleased if he caught us together
.

“I don’t want to marry you,” she said, finally. A dozen weaselling excuses came to her mind, but she pushed them aside. “I have ...”

Robin gave her a pleading stare. “I know you felt something, in the forest,” he said. He leaned forward, pressing into her personal space. “I felt it too.”

Emily winced at the memory. “It wasn’t
real
,” she said. She took a deliberate step back, unsure what else to do. “What happened there didn’t happen because I like you ...”

“It
was
real,” Robin said. His voice hardened. “Or are you trying to deny your own feelings?”

“I am aware of what I felt,” Emily said, stiffly. She clamped down hard on the flash of anger that threatened to overwhelm her. “But it was not
real
. I regret kissing you ...”

“Bernard doesn’t regret kissing Julianne, you know,” Robin said. There was a hint of envy in his voice. “And I don’t think
she
regrets it either.”

“They already had feelings for one another,” Emily said. “I don’t have any feelings for you.”

“You kissed me,” Robin protested.

“I know,” Emily said. She resisted the urge to shout at him, then held up her hand as he took another step towards her. “And I regret it.”

Robin glared. “Why?”

“I have a ... a prior relationship,” Emily said. “I don’t ...”

“You were trapped in the nexus point for years,” Robin snapped. He sounded, just for a moment, as if he thought she was being stupid. Perhaps he did. “You have no idea just
how
long you were trapped or how to return to your home, if it even exists. Your ... former partner will have found someone else—if he isn’t already dust! There is no reason for you to wait for him when there is no hope of you seeing each other again.”

His voice hardened. “I’m going to be a master soon,” he added. “I have contacts with masters both inside and outside the castle and a number of relatives who have married into other communes. And we have feelings for each other. You should consider me ...”

Emily cut him off. “Because you’re the best offer I’m likely to get?”

“You need someone who will protect you,” Robin said. “And someone who will overlook your ... eccentricities. Or any ... prior relationships you might have had.”

He met his eyes. “Why should you not consider me?”

Emily felt her temper snap. “Because you are a rude and pushy young fool?”

She sensed his magic blazing with fury and hastily strengthened her protections, unsure if he would try to lash out at her or merely lambast her with angry words. Robin’s demon seemed to flicker into visibility for a long second—a concentrated mass of malice sitting on his shoulder—before vanishing again. Emily braced herself, unwilling to back down and yet unwilling to fight. If Robin lost control completely ...

Somehow, he calmed himself. “Explain.”

Emily was tempted to point out that he had no right to give her orders, but refrained.

“I don’t need your protection,” she said, instead. “And I should not have to seek a match based on whoever will tolerate me.”

Robin looked blank. “Why not?”

He met her eyes. Emily tensed, half-expecting an attempt to invade her mind, but felt nothing. “You are a woman who has been trained as a magician,” he said. “You have no family, no friends; you are surrounded by rumors that will shadow your footsteps until the day you die. Any man interested in courting you will wonder, deep inside, if those rumors are true, if he’s not the first man to ...”

Emily felt a hot flash of anger. “To have sex with me?”

“Yes,” Robin said. He lowered his voice. When he spoke, he sounded oddly sincere. “Your prospects for a good match are minimal.”

It was hard, very hard, not to either laugh or cry. The hell of it, Emily knew, was by his lights it was a very good offer. An apprentice magician—an apprentice who would be a master soon—was a very good catch, even if his wife could expect mood swings and bouts of insanity that would only grow worse as he grew older. And yes, someone with such an uncertain past and present as Emily couldn’t expect many suitors. Bernard might have accepted her as an equal, of sorts, but he wasn’t interested in
marrying
her ...

And he honestly believes I left Caleb in the past
, Emily thought.
As far as he knows, I have no family ties
.

She shook her head, gently. Even if she had been trapped in the past, even if what she’d told them about her origins was true, she wouldn’t have wanted Robin. She’d met too many people like him, too many people who were charming and likable as long as they got their way. Being his wife would be an unpleasant experience. The best she could hope for from him would be being treated like a china doll, someone to dress up in finery and clean regularly, but not a person in her own right. And at worst ... she remembered, all too clearly, the look on Eldora’s face.

I would have poisoned my husband if he’d treated me like that
, she thought.
But Eldora would have nowhere to go afterwards.

“I thank you for the offer,” she said, formally. “But I must decline.”

Robin peered at her, as if he were trying to see into her mind. “Is there someone else?”

“You would not find me a comfortable wife,” Emily said. “And we would fight as much as anything else.”

She watched him, wondering how he would react. Her magic shimmered below her skin, ready to shield her and strike back ... she could sense his demon
looking
at her, even though it was still invisible. Perhaps she should have mentioned
that
as a reason to reject him, even though he wouldn’t have accepted it. And then he rose to his feet and walked to the door.

Emily blinked in astonishment, staring after him as he left the room. She’d expected everything from a quiet apology to violent screaming and shouting, not ... not Robin just
leaving
. Did he feel too ashamed to push the issue any further? Or did he think he’d embarrassed himself enough? Or ... no matter how she looked at it, she didn’t understand what was going through his head. But if he was already unstable, thanks to the demons, his reactions might be unpredictable anyway.

She returned the vellum to her pocket and rose, heading to the door. Her watch hadn’t come through the time warp with her, but it
felt
like she had an hour to go until lunch and she wasn’t scheduled to meet any other apprentices until afterwards. No doubt Tama was busy complaining to the rest of them about what a bitch she was, just for making him try to learn to draw runes. Such stupidity wouldn’t last long in
her
Whitehall, she reminded herself. A stupid magician would be a dead magician very quickly.

And no one would have said any of that to Mistress Irene or Lady Barb
, she thought, as she made her way back to the bedroom.
Neither of them would have tolerated it for a second
.

“Emily,” Julianne said. She was sitting at the table, working her way through a basket of herbs. “Did you have a good time?”

Emily shook her head. “Is Tama always such a pain?”

“He’s worse to the serving girls,” Julianne said. “He didn’t want to learn from you?”

“Yeah,” Emily confirmed. “How did you know?”

Julianne snorted. “I’ve been trying to teach a couple of the boys,” she said. “One—a servant who wanted to learn potions—did well, but the other—a former apprentice—flatly refused to learn from me.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “And what did you say to him?”

“Said if he didn’t want to learn, it was his problem—not mine,” Julianne said. “And he just up and left.”

Emily had to smile. “And then Robin asked me to marry him,” she added. “I said no.”

Julianne frowned. “He’s really taken with you, isn’t he?”

“I know,” Emily said. Since when had
she
become a desirable girl? She hadn’t realized that Caleb was interested in her until her friends had told her. “But I don’t want him.”

“I’m sure he took that very well,” Julianne said, sarcastically. “His master was not pleased with him sniffing around you.”

“I imagine he wasn’t,” Emily said. If Master Chambers believed—genuinely believed—that she’d seduced Whitehall, of all people, he might assume she was trying to seduce Robin and lead him astray. Or he might fear that she would teach Robin how to use magic without demons. “What happened?”

“Bernard said that Robin was beaten for it,” Julianne said. Her face twisted in sympathy. “I don’t know for sure, but he
did
take a couple of healing and painkilling potions afterwards.”

Emily snorted in surprise. Robin’s master had put his foot down—and Robin had carried on anyway? “Is it really that bad?”

Julianne frowned. “The beatings, or you saying no?”

“Me saying no,” Emily said.

“There was a time when he could have had any girl he wanted,” Julianne said. “He was young, powerful, had excellent prospects ... there were quite a few girls who looked on him with favor. But now ... the only marriageable women here, apart from you and me, are the serving girls.”

“So he wants me because I’m the only candidate,” Emily said. She supposed she should be relieved that the other apprentices hadn’t started asking her to marry them too, although Robin had probably intimidated them. “Apart from you, I suppose.”

Julianne nodded. “We’ll be trying to bring more women into the castle during the Gathering,” she said. “And if they happen to be of magical blood, so much the better.”

“Stupid,” Emily muttered. If Robin believed in the curse, Robin would be better off trying to court one of the serving girls.
She
wouldn’t have any problem bearing children. “Robin isn’t exactly of noble blood—and Tama definitely isn’t.”

“Men can be very stupid,” Julianne agreed. She sighed, rather melodramatically. “But then, women can be stupid too.”

“A
ND UPON THIS CRYSTAL,”
M
ASTER
B
ONES
said, as Emily entered the chamber under the nexus point, “we will build our base.”

She sucked in her breath as she took in the crystals, growing rapidly until they branched up to the nexus point and throughout the castle. The control room—the control room she’d discovered under Whitehall School—was taking shape in front of her, the pieces of spellwork growing organically into something that would last the ages. A humanoid figure lay on a table, magic bubbling around it as Master Keldor and Master Wolfe made the final preparations. The Warden, too, was coming to life.

A voice-activated control system
, Emily thought. It would take time for the Warden to evolve, but she knew it would happen.
And an intelligence that will be far too close to human—without ever quite crossing the line—to exist anywhere else
.

“Ah, Emily,” Master Wolfe said. “Please wait in the next chamber, will you?”

Emily nodded and walked out of the control room, feeling the odd sensation of someone walking over her grave as she passed the tiny library. A handful of scrolls were already resting within, waiting to be consulted; others, she knew, would be added in the weeks and months before the underground tunnels were sealed. She watched a gaggle of workmen hurry past her, then followed them down into the next chamber. The map room was already taking shape.

Another shiver ran down her spine as she walked through the map room—the maps on the walls were clearly going to be updated, sometime in the future—and into the room beyond, empty save for a handful of runes on the walls. She stopped, reaching out with her senses to feel the magic running through the stone; she knew, centuries from now, her past self would discover her future self in the chamber. And her touch would be enough to bring her future self out of stasis,
slowly
. She would need to hide—or jump into a pocket dimension—as soon as she was awake. There was no way to know what would happen if her past and future selves met ahead of time, but she doubted it would be good. She already knew they
hadn’t
met until she shoved herself into the nexus point.

She turned and strode back to the library, silently running through the spells she’d devised as she took a seat and waited for Master Wolfe. Tapping the nexus point to power the spell—and conceal it from everyone else—wasn’t going to be hard. Keying the spell so it would start to come undone at the touch of her past self’s hand was a little harder—her past self’s magical signature was identical to her future self’s—but it could be done. The
real
problem lay in shutting down her mind, rather than merely petrifying her body. There was no way she could endure nearly a thousand years as a statue ...

... And yet, she couldn’t find a way to avoid it.

My future self did it somehow
, she thought.
I only have to figure out how.

Master Wolfe stepped into the library, looking tired. “Lady Emily,” he said, taking a seat facing her. “I trust you had a pleasant few days?”

Emily shrugged. She’d tried to teach five male apprentices and only one of them had
listened
to her, although none of them had been
quite
as rude as Tama. And Robin had refused to face her, while Bernard had eyed her oddly ... it made her wonder just what Robin had said to him, after she’d turned down the proposal. No doubt he’d blamed everything on her.

“I’ve been expanding the wards.” Master Wolfe added. “The castle will be safe in Lord Whitehall’s absence.”

“I hope so,” Emily agreed. Thankfully, neither Master Chambers nor Master Reaper had shown any interest in learning how to maintain the wards.
She
would have preferred to quietly lock them out of the command system, but that was impossible without tearing the whole network apart and starting again. “Did you find a way to keep demons out?”

“I can keep new ones from being summoned,” Master Wolfe said. “But keeping old ones out may be impossible.”