Infinite Regress (23 page)

“Professor Locke is crazy,” she said, as water cascaded over her body. It was such a relief to be clean again, even if she could still
feel
the dust on her skin. “If touching the crystals can change the school’s entire internal configuration, what will happen if he starts probing further?”

“He wants to unlock the secrets of ancient magic before he dies,” Cabiria reminded her.
She
didn’t seem concerned about being naked. Emily couldn’t help noticing that her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. “There’s no way he’ll let the Grandmaster forbid him from going back without a fight.”

“And to think I thought the Grandmaster’s will was absolute within the school,” Emily muttered. Not that she expected Gordian to forbid further exploration. He needed a big success to justify his promotion and learning to understand and duplicate ancient magics would be a step in the right direction. “This could go horrendously wrong.”

She scowled as she stepped out of the shower and used magic to dry herself, then summon a robe from the changing room. It felt dirty and stained as she pulled it over her head, but it would suffice until she returned to her bedroom and changed. Behind her, Cabiria finished washing herself and stepped out of the shower. Emily glanced at her, then sighed. They’d been told to write their reports separately.

“Help me clean the floor,” she said, casting a cleaning spell to remove the dust. “We don’t want to be blamed for the mess.”

Cabiria gave her an odd look. “It doesn’t clean itself?”

Emily shook her head. Their bedrooms might be spelled to remain clean—she’d put the spells against dust in place herself—but Martial Magic students were expected to clean everything themselves, from their weapons to their showers and changing rooms. Sergeant Miles was a decent man, far less terrifying than Sergeant Harkin, but she knew he’d be furious if they left a mess behind. They’d be lucky if he didn’t make them clean it up with their own toothbrushes.

“Be glad we’re not in the class,” Emily said. “We’d have to do it without magic.”

There was no sign of Professor Locke outside, much to Emily’s surprise. She wondered, briefly, what they should do, then decided that Sergeant Miles had effectively dismissed them anyway. They had reports to write.

“They won’t be interested in the statue,” Cabiria said, as they headed up the stairwell. It looked different too. “But we have to tell them about it anyway.”

“I know,” Emily said. Professor Locke might have dismissed it, but she had a feeling that it was important. “If you see it again, try not to take your eyes off it.”

Cabiria eyed her. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Emily said. There was no point in trying to explain the Weeping Angels to someone who had never heard of television, let alone
Doctor Who
. “I just heard stories of statues that moved—and killed—when they weren’t being watched.”

“Y
OU’RE IN DANGER OF FAILING THIS
class,” Professor Lombardi said.

Emily sighed, inwardly. The seventh attempt at working a ritual had failed as badly as the previous six. She’d hoped that Cirroc would be able to work with her, but even his brashness hadn’t lasted when the ritual had begun. Professor Lombardi had told her to remain behind after dismissing the rest of his students.

“I know, sir,” she said.

“It isn’t solely your fault,” Professor Lombardi added. “But it
is
growing quite worrying.”

Emily bit down, hard, on the temptation to insist it wasn’t even
remotely
her fault, but she knew better. There was no way to hide her magic reserves from the other students, not once they joined hands. She’d thought about trying to expend as much as possible before the class, but she knew that could be dangerous. She needed a reserve to cope with any unexpected demands.

“I don’t know what to suggest,” Professor Lombardi stated. “You are not failing deliberately, yet you cannot progress.”

“I have an idea,” Emily said. “I assume that partnering with you is out of the question?”

“Quite,” Professor Lombardi agreed. “I need to supervise.”

Emily wasn’t surprised. “Then I would like to ask a Sixth Year student to serve as my partner,” she said. “She would have far greater control over her magic, as well as experience working rituals. I believe she would find it easier to cope.”

Professor Lombardi studied her for a long, cold moment. “There are people who would say that was a selfish suggestion,” he said, finally.

“I would be happy to pay for her time,” Emily said. He had a point. Aloha was already badly overworked. She could ask another Sixth Year, if Aloha refused, but she didn’t know any of them very well. “Or trade something for it.”

“It may well work,” Professor Lombardi said. “Do you have someone in mind?”

“Aloha,” Emily said.

Professor Lombardi stroked his chin, thoughtfully. “She was a good student,” he said, after a moment. “And she has considerably greater power reserves than your compatriots. I will ask her myself.”

Emily frowned. “I can ask her...”

“And she will be alarmed,” Professor Lombardi interrupted. “I will ask her personally, confirming to her that any rituals will be carried out under my supervision. However, it will also be made clear to her that this is not
compulsory.
If she is not inclined to assist you, she will not have to do so.”

“I understand,” Emily said.

“And if I cannot find a Sixth Year to assist you, or you are unable to work with the student I choose, I will have no choice but to dismiss you from the class,” Professor Lombardi added, warningly. “You cannot proceed.”

Emily scowled down at his desk. She wanted to protest, to insist it wasn’t her fault, but she knew he had a point. If she couldn’t practice sharing magic with a fellow student, she didn’t have a hope of moving on to the more complex rituals. She wondered, briefly, if she could ask Mistress Danielle or Lady Barb for private lessons, but those would have to wait until the summer holidays. Professor Lombardi would be furious if he caught her studying rituals outside the school and Gordian would use it as an excuse to expel her.

“I understand, sir,” she said.

“Good,” Professor Lombardi said. “It will be through no fault of your own, Emily, but time is no longer on our side.”

He nodded towards the door. “We’ll discuss the matter further tomorrow afternoon.”

Emily rose and walked out of the classroom. Caleb waited there, talking to Cirroc in a low voice. Emily cringed inside, wondering what Cirroc might have told him, then reminded herself that Cirroc was unlikely to discuss rituals with her boyfriend. Caleb gave her a hug as soon as she closed the door, then took her hand and led her down the corridor.

“I booked a workroom,” he said. “And I want to hear about
everything
that happened yesterday.”

“Well,” Emily said. “I got up in the morning and...”

She grinned as he rolled his eyes, then slowly detailed everything that had happened, doing her best not to miss out a single detail. Caleb listened, opening the door to the workroom and waving her to a chair as she told him about the statue. He was a good listener, she knew from experience, one who reserved all questions for the end. It was a pleasant change from talking to some of her friends.

“It was a statue of you?”

Emily nodded. “It was me,” she confirmed. “I suppose it could have been my identical twin...”

Caleb shrugged as he fiddled with the tools on the workbench. “And it vanished when you looked away,” he mused. “It
could
have been an illusion.”

“Professor Locke said the same thing,” Emily said. She shook her head slowly. “But it was really too close to
me
to be an illusion.”

“It would depend on how it was spelled,” Caleb pointed out. “Your own imagination might have added details to it, if the spell was cast properly.”

“But it wouldn’t have added a scar,” Emily countered, dryly. She rubbed her cheek meaningfully. “Why would it add something I don’t have?”

“Point,” Caleb agreed. He looked down at the bench thoughtfully. “But if the statue was real, where did it go? Did you even go back to the right chamber?”

“There were footprints in the dust,” Emily said.

Caleb nodded. “Interesting,” he said. “But I have no answer.”

Emily sighed as she sat down facing him. The mystery had puzzled her as she wrote out her report, then handed it in to Professor Locke. She couldn’t think of
anything
that accounted for the statue, unless it was a very odd illusion indeed. And yet,
something
had definitely been there. Her fingers should have gone right through an illusion when she tried to touch it.

“We need to make some more tiles,” Caleb said. “Impressing the new Grandmaster might be a little harder than before.”

“True,” Emily agreed. She had a feeling that reserving the workroom hadn’t been easy. There was simply too much demand for them, even on the weekends. “Let’s see what we can do.”

Her mind wandered as she got to work, carefully carving out the tiles. Judging by what she’d seen, below Whitehall, there was far more than
one
spell embedded in the crystalline structures. Indeed, she was
sure
she’d seen something like it before. Not one spell; dozens, perhaps hundreds, of spells. And they were all interacting constantly, fed by the power of the nexus point. Logically, the whole edifice should have collapsed into nothingness long ago...

Whitehall is over eight hundred years old
, she thought,
and no one went into that chamber for decades. How did it last so long?

She yelped in pain as she cut herself, her blood staining the table. Caleb put down his tile and hurried over to help her heal the cut, then wipe up the blood for later disposal. Emily cursed her own carelessness as she dumped the ruined tile in the bin, knowing that she’d been distracted from her work. If she did that in Alchemy, even with the protective wards surrounding the classroom, she’d be lucky if she
only
blew off her hands.

“Wait for a while,” Caleb advised. “You need to relax before you go back to work.”

Emily nodded, watching in private admiration as Caleb bent his head back over the desk. His hands remained scarred, but he’d grown better—far better—at controlling them. She’d been right, she suspected; the twitching and shaking had been psychosomatic, rather than signs of injury the healers had been unable to fix. It was odd, by Earthly standards, but there was something about watching him use his hands that appealed to her. He was actually creating something
tangible
with his labor.

And something handcrafted would cost thousands of dollars, back on Earth
, she reminded herself.
All those eras where handcrafted work was the norm rested on the backs of countless workers
...

She realized, a moment later,
precisely
where she’d seen such spellwork before. The Mimic hadn’t been a creature, the Mimic had been a
spell
—no, a number of fiendishly complex spells working together. She’d seen the network of spells that made it work—that gave it everything from limited intelligence to near-unstoppable power—seconds before throwing herself out of a window in a desperate bid to escape. And the spellwork below Whitehall had to work along the same lines!

The Mimic must have used a form of necromancy
, she thought. It was the only way to account for how it drained its victims, using them as a source of power.
But Whitehall draws on the nexus point
.

Her mind raced. The Mimic had possessed a certain intelligence, quite apart from whatever it had drawn from its victims to allow it to impersonate them. And she’d often wondered if Whitehall had some limited intelligence of its own. The school
had
allowed her into the nexus point, when Shadye had been patiently hunting her down. Had it
known
she needed to use the power to kill the insane necromancer? Or had it merely recognized her as a student and allowed her into the chamber?

Caleb finished the tile and looked at her. “Emily?”

“I’ve had a thought,” Emily said.

She reached for a sheet of paper, then stopped. Did she dare tell Caleb what she knew? Only a handful of people knew the truth about Mimics. The previous Grandmaster had believed that others would try to duplicate the spellwork, once they knew it was possible; he’d ordered his staff not to talk. And yet, unlocking the secrets behind the Mimic might also unlock the secrets behind Whitehall. Emily didn’t share Professor Locke’s enthusiasm for pushing buttons, just to see what they did, but she had to admit she was fascinated. The prospect of uncovering magics from the distant past was very attractive.

Caleb frowned. “What sort of thought?”

“It’s... complicated,” Emily said. She swallowed. Etiquette was hardly her forte, but what she needed to ask was a serious breach of custom. “Can I ask for your oath of silence?”

Caleb looked hurt, deeply hurt. His voice, when he spoke, was angry. “Do you not trust me?”

Emily cursed herself, again. Merely
asking
for the oath was proof enough that she
didn’t
trust him, even though she’d let him hold her and kiss her... he had every right to be angry with her. Questioning the honor of someone on the Nameless World was practically a challenge to a duel. She didn’t think Caleb would issue a challenge, but she might just have blown their relationship out of the water.

“This is delicate and dangerous,” she said, silently pleading for him to understand. “The... the former Grandmaster was reluctant to discuss it at all.”

Caleb studied her for a long moment. “Very well,” he said, reluctantly. “You have my oath of silence until you release me from it, as long as you remain alive.”

Emily winced. She supposed she deserved it. Oaths were tricky things, particularly when they weren’t phrased very carefully. Caleb would not want to be oathbound to her even after her death. She could hardly grant him permission to forget the oath after she died, if he outlived her.