Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7) (42 page)

“I will speak to Master Grey,” Zed said. “But I doubt I have much influence over him. I wasn’t a tutor here while he was a lad.”

He sighed. “I’ll have you escorted back to the surface,” he added. He started to turn, but stopped himself. “Unless...unless you want to meet anyone here?”

Emily shook her head. The only person at Mountaintop she’d been close to had been Frieda, who’d come with her when she’d left the underground school. None of the others had been more than acquaintances, not when she had never dared let down her guard. And Nanette...

She looked up as a thought struck her. “What happened to Nanette?”

“She vanished,” Zed said. “I believe she fled the school shortly after the wards failed. I assume she must have sought medical treatment for her hand, perhaps paid to have a Healer regrow the lost limb. After that...I don’t know where she went, or even if she’s still alive.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Emily said. She finished shelving the books, then took one final look around the library. Zed was right; it
was
an interesting collection. She could have happily spent several months reading and rereading the books, if she’d had the time. “And thank you.”

Zed eyed her bleakly. “For what?”

“Y
OU WEREN’T AS LONG AS I HAD
feared,” Lady Barb said, as Emily emerged from the tunnels into a different sort of darkness. Night was already beginning to fall over the land. “Did you find anything?”

“I may have,” Emily said. “But I need to talk to the Grandmaster.”

Lady Barb gave her a sharp look. “What are you thinking?”

“Pablo doesn’t have to be confined to the Halfway House,” Emily said. It was something she’d considered earlier, something that might distract the older woman. “Give him a secretary and a chat parchment, perhaps more than one. He could serve as an adviser even if he can’t actually serve as a Mediator.”

She had to force herself not to flinch back from Lady Barb’s glare. “Emily, your friends are likely to be killed by a demon and you yourself will be killed by a far stronger magician, if you don’t find a way out of the trap,” Lady Barb snapped. “This isn’t the time to talk about anything else!”

Emily met the older woman’s eyes...and saw fear and grief hidden behind the anger. It struck her like a knife in the gut. Lady Barb
cared
for her, maybe even considered her a daughter of sorts...and now Lady Barb had to watch her die. She’d wracked her brains searching for a loophole and found nothing. Master Grey would kill Emily and there was nothing Lady Barb could do to prevent it, not even by challenging Master Grey first.
He
could refuse a challenge, if one were offered. And sticking a knife in his back would destroy the older woman’s reputation as surely as running from a duel would shatter Emily’s.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said, tiredly. “But the Grandmaster is the only one I can speak to.”

“Very well,” Lady Barb said. She took Emily’s arm. “Brace yourself.”

Emily closed her eyes as the spell built up around them. When she opened them, they were standing just outside Whitehall’s wards. The school no longer felt welcoming; she could have sworn, as she stepped through the first set of defenses, that she heard a faint titter in her mind from the demon. No doubt it was reaching out for new victims, now that it held over a hundred students in its thrall. It would whisper doubts and fears into unprotected minds until they surrendered and bared themselves for the slaughter. And even if the other students were protected now, it could still taunt them from afar, enjoying their helpless rage and fear.

“It’s still here,” she muttered, quietly.

“Yes, it is,” Lady Barb answered. “And it won’t let go of anyone. Why should it?”

Emily said nothing as they walked through empty corridors and up to the Grandmaster’s office. A handful of students walked past them, escorted by Master Grey and Professor Lombardi; Emily forced herself to meet Master Grey’s eyes as they passed over her, then walked onwards. The students stared, clearly unsure of what would happen if - when - the duel actually took place. Master Grey was an experienced sorcerer, but Emily had cowed
dozens
of experienced sorcerers at Cockatrice.

And would that have worked
, she asked herself,
if so many of them hadn’t wanted to fight
?

“By tradition, you’re not supposed to speak with him, except through seconds,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “I don’t know
what
he was thinking, offering to continue to teach you.”

“Maybe he was trying to make a point,” Emily said. It was a mystery to her too. “Perhaps he thought people would believe that he was preparing me for the duel.”

Lady Barb snorted. “If he offers you any special training, you would be well advised to refuse,” she warned. “I wouldn’t trust him not to cripple you in some way.”

“I don’t think he would need to bother,” Emily said. Two decades of experience would be hard to beat. “Old age and treachery beats youth and enthusiasm any time.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Lady Barb said. “Rigging the arena may be impossible, but finding ways to hamper your opponent is an old and dishonorable tradition.”

She sighed as they stopped outside the Grandmaster’s office. “I’ll speak to you about training later,” she said. “Until this state of emergency ends, we may as well make good use of the time.”

“Yes,” Emily said. She surprised herself by giving the older woman a hug. “And thank you.”

Lady Barb hugged her briefly, and headed off down the corridor. Emily sighed, turned to the door and knocked once. It clicked open, allowing her to step inside. The Grandmaster was seated in front of his desk, poring over a book. His blindfold was lying on the table, exposing his eyes. Emily recoiled in shock as he looked up at her, revealing that both of his eyeballs were missing. Two empty sockets looked back at her.

“Not many people have seen that,” the Grandmaster observed. He reached for his blindfold and pulled it back over his eyes. “I suggest you keep it to yourself, please.”

“I will,” Emily promised. It was an order, however phrased, and she’d be wise to treat it as such. “How do you read books?”

“Magic,” the Grandmaster said, dryly. “There is no shortage of spells for overcoming physical disabilities, if you have enough magic.”

He cleared his throat and pointed at the chair on the other side of his desk. “Sit,” he ordered. “Did you find anything?”

“I may have,” Emily said. She glanced at the book he’d been reading, but it was upside down and she couldn’t make out the title. “Did you?”

“Not much,” the Grandmaster said. “I spent several hours divining the nature of the demon and the spells binding it in place. Shadye was really quite lucky the demon didn’t break free and devour him years ago.”

Emily nodded impatiently. She’d already figured that out.

“Shadye could probably tell the demon to leave and it would have to go,” he added, after a moment. “But
we
couldn’t banish it ourselves.”

“Maybe we can,” Emily said. “It called me Shadye’s Heir.”

The Grandmaster frowned. “You
might
be able to tell it to leave,” he said. “But it may choose to refuse to accept you as holding any authority. Demons can always be relied upon to interpret the rules in their favor and...well, you’re
not
Shadye’s blood relative. It could assert that it was I, not you, who brought it into Whitehall. Or it could simply claim that the normal rules of inheritance don’t apply to bound demons.”

He looked up. “Do you want to try?”

“We don’t have a choice,” Emily said. And if it didn’t work, there was always her other idea. “I can go back into Alassa and...”

The Grandmaster seemed to peer at her. “And what?”

“Tell it to leave,” Emily said. “It
might
work.”

“And what else?” The Grandmaster asked. His voice was deceptively mild. “I can tell when someone is holding back the truth.”

Emily swallowed. The Grandmaster had looked into her mind once, when Shadye had used her as his puppet to break through the defenses. It had left her feeling naked and vulnerable...she thought, now, she was protected, that Void’s spell could keep her mind inviolate. But she didn’t want to find out if she was wrong.

“There’s another option,” she said. “I can offer
myself
to the demon.”

“Yourself,” the Grandmaster said. His voice went flat. “And what makes you think the demon will
want
you?”

“I’m Shadye’s Heir,” Emily said. “I also
killed
Shadye, depriving the demon of its chance to exact revenge. And I’d be offering myself freely, in exchange for the release of its victims and the demon returning home.”

“Taking you with it,” the Grandmaster said, flatly. “Emily, you’d spend the rest of eternity in its clutches.”

“There are too many students caught in its clutches,” Emily pointed out. “If it will take me in exchange for them...”

“It should, according to the laws,” the Grandmaster said. “And yes, it could accept you as Shadye’s Heir...”

His face twisted into a grimace. “But you would, at the very least, wind up dead.”

“I know,” Emily said. “But Master Grey is going to kill me anyway, isn’t he? If the demon kills me instead, my property will be distributed in line with my will, not transferred to him.”

“That’s arguable,” the Grandmaster said. “But it would probably stand up in court, if Master Grey felt inclined to challenge it. I don’t think he will.”

Emily nodded slowly. Alassa and Imaiqah would receive money; Frieda would receive the Barony, if King Randor saw fit to accept her as Emily’s heir. Lady Barb would inherit the notebooks Emily had stored in her trunk, along with the books and the snake-bracelet. She would have to see if Frieda could take Aurelius as a familiar, or destroy the snake if the younger girl couldn’t bond with him. The Death Viper was just too dangerous to be left alone if he couldn’t find another partner. She smirked at the thought of Master Grey picking up the bracelet from her dead body, then getting a horrific surprise as Aurelius reverted back to his natural form. It might well prove fatal.

“I can do something to make sure of it,” the Grandmaster added. “Under the circumstances, it would be the least I could do.”

Maybe I should leave the bracelet to Master Grey
, Emily thought.
Alter the spells, keeping the snake in that form for several hours without me...

She pushed the thought aside and looked at the Grandmaster. “I am willing,” she said, feeling oddly free. If she couldn’t win, and it seemed to be a choice between Master Grey and the demon, she could at least pick the time and place of her death. “Can we start now?”

“Soon,” the Grandmaster said. “Do you not wish to speak to anyone...?”

“No,” Emily said. She didn’t want to speak to anyone, not with the knowledge of her impending death hanging over her like a shroud. Lady Barb and Frieda - and Caleb - would be horrified, while her other friends were in comas. “I’ll write letters for them, if you don’t mind.”

“I will see they are delivered,” the Grandmaster said. He tilted his head to one side, almost like an owl. “You do realize that you will be leaving many people who love you behind?”

“I know,” Emily said. “But I will be leaving them now or leaving them when Master Grey kills me.”

Or when I go on the run
, she added, silently. She couldn’t accept Caleb’s offer, not when it meant separating him from his family permanently.
I couldn’t take anyone with me either
.

“Welcome to power,” the Grandmaster said.

Emily frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Making the choice about who lives and who dies,” the Grandmaster said. “
That
is true power. Everything else is just window-dressing.”

“I see,” Emily said. She took her courage in both hands and asked the question that had been nagging at her, ever since the first meeting with the demon. “What happened to make you blind?”

The Grandmaster looked at her. “And if I told you that merely
asking
that question would get you in a great deal of trouble, young lady, would you still ask it?”

Emily had to smile. “Can I get in worse trouble?”

He smiled back. “My father was an odd man,” he said, softly. “He believed there were ways to gain power through twins, even though magical twins simply don’t exist. His solution to this problem was to marry four wives and impregnate them all at the same time. He calculated that the babies - all sons - would be born within days of each other, all half-brothers.”

He paused. “It worked better than he had hoped,” he said. “We were all born on the same
day
.”

Emily blinked. “Did he plan it that way?”

“Maybe,” the Grandmaster said. He shrugged. “Our father always kept pushing the limits, Emily. He managed to kill himself when we were nine years old, after yet another demented experiment went badly wrong. None of us really missed him. He wasn’t abusive, but he kept forcing us to try different spells in the hopes of bringing out our magic early. He had this theory that the four of us would balance each other, making it easier for us to handle magic as children. Nothing worked, thankfully. We wouldn’t have survived puberty.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said.

“It wasn’t your fault,” the Grandmaster said. “Our mothers weren’t regarded as welcome by the rest of our father’s family. His family took most of what our father had left behind, leaving us with a pittance. You won’t believe just how resentful we were at how we were treated, at how easy it had been for our uncles to take everything. If our father hadn’t paid the fees for Whitehall in advance, we would have been left without any hope of training.

“It left us with a hunger for power. By the time we were in Sixth Year, as the oddest family in Whitehall, we wanted more. Brilliant careers, brilliant apprenticeships, loomed. But it wasn’t enough for us. We’d explored the forbidden sections of the library and...
recovered...
our father’s old books. One of them told us how to summon a demon. It promised great power to anyone who raised a demon with the proper ceremonies. We wouldn’t need to spend years developing our powers, we thought. All we needed to do was raise a demon and make a deal.”