Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (48 page)

They didn’t recognize me before now
, she thought, numbly.
Or perhaps they did—they let me twist aspects of themselves against Shadye
...

She forced herself to remember the twists and turns of the underground passageways as she heard the sound of her past self heading back down the corridor. There should be a door ... there. She slipped through the door, then sent a mental command into the wards; the door slid closed, then vanished. No one could find it, let alone break in, without access to the control systems. And that level of access had long since gone.

Until now
, she thought.
I can manipulate the school at will
.

She sagged against the wall, then sat down and took a long moment to gather herself. How long had it been since she’d eaten, since she’d had a chance to rest? The wards pulsed around her as she drew on them for strength, even though she knew she’d pay for it later; she’d have to sneak up to the surface long enough to find a cache of food before the school started its long collapse into rubble. She scanned the underground tunnels, watching through the wards as Professor Locke led her past self into one of the power control rooms, then closed her eyes as the entire school rearranged itself. Professor Locke had inadvertently triggered a defense system.

The wards have grown
, Emily thought.

She shook her head in awe. It was a shame that Master Wolfe had not lived long enough to see what his work had become. He’d
definitely
been a genius. His network of spells had adapted to changing circumstances until they’d developed a form of intelligence in their own right. She wondered, absently, just what had happened between her disappearance and the tunnels being sealed, then dismissed the thought. The remains of the Manavore—the twists in the pocket dimensions under the school—would have discouraged anyone from exploring long before Bernard had closed and hidden the gates.

He probably thought it would be better if no one had access to the control room
, she decided, as she stumbled to her feet. Her body felt tired and worn, but she couldn’t rest just yet.
And as long as he kept the link to the wards, he was probably right
.

She checked the wards to make sure the path was clear, then placed the books in the sealed chamber before she started to make her way to the upper levels. No one would come to steal either of the Books of Pacts, ensuring she would have time to hide them within a pocket dimension and throw away the key. She
would
keep her word to the demon, she told herself; she wouldn’t
destroy
the books. But they’d be rendered completely unusable. No one could hope to find them, even if they had her under their control. The coordinates of the dimension would be completely scrambled.

And if I hurl them into the future
, she thought,
they’ll be lost forever
.

Her fingers traced the covers of the books as she frowned. They felt ... dead, as if something was gone. Even the aura of evil seemed much diminished. Perhaps she was now blind to their evil—she’d carried a demon on her shoulder for nearly a week—or perhaps it was gone altogether. The demons bound within the book might be gone too. And that meant ... what?

She contemplated the problem as she made her way to the gates. The demon must have known she’d intended to cheat it, yet it had left a gaping loophole that allowed her to honor her word to Lord Whitehall as well as keep the letter of her bargain.
That
seemed odd. It had had her in a blind. Surely it could have driven a harder bargain,
knowing
that she would take the bargain. Had there been a way to jump forward in time without its help after all? Or had its
real
goal been to render the books useless?

Or perhaps it wanted some of my blood
, she thought.
But I made sure to render the blood useless first
.

She shook her head. If she’d made a mistake, if she’d been pushed into doing something terribly stupid, she’d find out sooner or later. But she’d seen no alternative.

Whitehall was in chaos, students stumbling around trying to find their classrooms and bedrooms; she passed unnoticed through the throng as she made her way into the kitchen pantry. Sneaking into the pantry was an old tradition at the school, she reminded herself as she hastily located a box of preserved ration bars, but using the wards to ensure she could neither be detected nor caught was probably cheating. She made a mental note to make sure she paid for the supplies as she found a trunk and stuffed it with paper and pencils as well as food and drink, then levitated it back down to the gates. It wouldn’t be too long before Grandmaster Gordian started trying to interrogate the wards, pinning down precisely what had happened.

They won’t tell him I’m in two places at once
, she reassured himself. She had to smile darkly at the thought of just what he’d say, when—if—he discovered that she had more access rights to the ward network than he did. But perhaps it would be better to keep it to herself.
They won’t tell him I’m here until too late
.

There were no guards on the gates as she walked into the lower levels, then down into the underground complex. The wards were already going to work, cleaning the dust and filtering the air, although it would be days before she could walk through the complex without using wards to keep the dust out of her mouth. She hurried down to the second level, bypassing the trap that had snarled her and Cabiria last time and paused outside the control room. It would be so much easier to take the books now, wouldn’t it? But her recollections insisted that she’d seen the books
before
they’d vanished.

I did take them
, she thought, morbidly. Professor Locke had been right, after all, when he’d accused Emily of stealing the books.
But I hadn’t taken them when they forced an oath from me
.

She checked the control complex, then walked through a hidden door into Master Wolfe’s chamber. It looked as if no one had set foot in the room since his death—she felt a sudden stab of burning rage at how casually Keldor had murdered such a man—and the bedding was nothing more than dust, but it would make a safe place to hide while she waited. She dumped the trunk of food on the floor, opened a bottle of water and drank it gratefully, then tucked into a ration bar. Sergeant Miles had been right when he’d complained that they tasted like cardboard—it seemed to be a universal rule—but they would keep her alive. With a little work, she shouldn’t need to leave the chamber until the time came to take the books.

I’ll have to go steal some bedding too
, she thought, as she finished her meal.
I won’t be able to sleep on the stone floor
.

She checked the wards again, making sure her past self was safe, then sat down at Master Wolfe’s desk, placing a large sheet of paper in front of her. Using a memory charm to jog her thoughts, she slowly worked her way through everything that would have to happen; the theft of the books, the slow collapse of the pocket dimension, Frieda’s disappearance ... she’d have to force herself to do nothing, when that happened. Her recollections insisted that Frieda had been trapped and there was nothing she could do to change it. All she could do was make sure that Frieda survived.

And I’ll have to master blood magic
, she reminded herself.
I’m going to need it
.

The thought made her shudder. To reach into someone’s mind, to alter their perceptions until they were biddable ... it was unthinkable. And to do it to
herself
... she’d heard enough horror stories about students who’d cast compulsion charms on themselves to know it wasn’t something to do lightly. She and her past self—her other self—were essentially the same person, after all. They might blur together into one mentality if she screwed up the spell.

And there’s no time to practice
, she added, as she rose to her feet. It was nearly night; the lights would be going out all over the castle. She was tempted to try her luck sneaking around without the wards, just to see if she could avoid being caught, but she pushed the thought out of her mind before it could tempt her
too
much.
And who could I practice on?

She slipped back upstairs, then headed to the Armory to steal some bedding. Having access to the wards made it far too easy to avoid the handful of wards Sergeant Miles had placed around the section and remove a bedroll, a chamberpot and some additional supplies. There was no shower within the chamber, nothing she could use to take a bath or wash herself thoroughly; she silently promised herself that she’d sneak into the upper levels long enough to take a shower, once her past self was safely out of the way. Unless that ran the risk of someone seeing her twice and wondering why she was in two places at once ...

... Or why she had a scar covering her cheek.

I just have to be careful
, she reminded herself. She could have the scar healed, after her past self was dispatched into the nexus point.
Very careful
.

She closed her eyes and slept as soon as she returned to the chamber, after setting the wards to alert her if someone passed through the gates and entered the underground complex. Her dreams were odd, half-remembered flickers of memory that faded almost as soon as she opened her eyes. She couldn’t help wondering, as she forced herself awake the following morning, if the demon had given her a little parting gift, although she knew it could easily be caused by close proximity to her past self. She tested and retested her mental defenses, then ate breakfast before settling down to work. She’d only get one shot at sending her past self back in time ...

History says I will succeed
, she told herself, firmly.
But it could be wrong
.

It was the waiting that got to her, she discovered, over the next few weeks. She’d never deliberately sought out someone else’s company since she’d been taken from Earth, but she couldn’t help feeling trapped and isolated in the ancient chamber. It would be easy, she kept thinking, to walk up to the other levels and spend some time with Frieda, Caleb or the Gorgon, yet it would run the risk of shattering the timeline. She raided the library, read countless books and worked hard to catch up with her schoolwork while waiting, but she still felt alone.

I should rewrite the history books
, she thought, one evening. She’d reread all the history books she’d read in first year and noted just how many inaccuracies were classed as gospel truth.
Professor Locke would appreciate it
.

She shook her head at the thought. Whitehall—Lord and Master Whitehall—hadn’t quite lived up to his reputation, while others were distorted or simply erased from the history books. There was no mention of Master Chambers or Master Gila, as far as she could tell; Master Keldor was barely mentioned, his writings long-since lost to time. But there was no suggestion that he’d betrayed Whitehall. Perhaps the
real
Whitehall had chosen to suppress that part of history, knowing that no one would reveal the truth. It wouldn’t do to have anyone think he could make a mistake.

The thought caused her a stab of pain. To her, Bernard and Julianne were living, breathing individuals; to history, they were dust and less than dust. She would never see them again, unless they’d found a way to fall forward into the future. Their children—somehow, she was sure Bernard and Julianne would have had children—were dust. If there were any descendants left, it was unlikely they knew anything about their ancestors. The Grandmasters would hardly have welcomed anyone who had a claim on their school.

And now, I have a claim on the school
, she thought.
Gordian is really not going to like that
.

She tossed the problem around and around in her mind as the days passed, one by one, until Professor Locke and his unwilling assistants stumbled across the library and the control room. Emily watched from a safe distance as Professor Locke, already consumed with the burning urge to uncover the secrets of the ancients before he died, touched the console and triggered another series of defenses. As soon as they were on their way back upstairs, she slipped into the library, carefully dismantled the protective wards and placed the books and scrolls within her trunk. One of the books was clearly a long-dead Book of Pacts—she wondered, absently, if it had been Robin’s—but the others were utterly irreplaceable.

I’m sorry
, she thought, thinking of her past self. Professor Locke was going to accuse her of stealing the books, even though she was innocent.
But I suppose I got told off before I actually did the crime
.

She took the books back to her chamber and started to go through them, using the wards to keep the fragile parchment intact. Most of Master Wolfe’s notes were there—she couldn’t help noticing that several other people had added their own impressions afterwards—enough to let her complete the work her past self had begun. Or would begin, several weeks in the future ... she scribbled a series of notes to herself, working out the sequence of events, then finished hunting through the pile of books and scrolls. The final scroll practically leapt into her hand the moment she touched it, magic flickering around it. She cursed her own carelessness as she checked the spell, realizing that the scroll was tied to her magic. It was a more subtle spell than she would have expected from the past.

The spell seemed safe enough, so she carefully unrolled the parchment and began to read. It wasn’t easy; Bernard—his sigil was at the top of the sheet—had written in a language she didn’t know, using an alphabet she didn’t recognize. She cast several different spells to help her translate the words, but none of them seemed to work perfectly. Far too many words were hazy, suggesting that the spell couldn’t decipher them completely.

Emily
, she read.
If you are reading this ...