Love's Labor's Won (2 page)

The door opened again, revealing the Gorgon and Jade. Emily waved cheerfully as the door closed, and winked at the Gorgon. In many ways, she was as much an outsider at Whitehall as Emily herself, all the more so because she looked utterly inhuman. Her body might be humanoid — if green, with scales in odd places — but instead of hair she had a writhing mass of snakes. She was one of the cleverest students Emily had met, yet also one of the most unfortunate. There might be no classical racism in the Allied Lands, but supernatural creatures — like Gorgons — were hated and feared.

Jade gave them all a bow. “A pleasure to be invited into this wondrous room,” he said formally, with a smile of his own. “It could not be a greater honor.”

“You’re welcome,” Emily said. Given that Jade had once, in all seriousness, asked her to marry him, it was astonishing how relaxed she’d become around him. “How did your last set of classes go?”

“Reasonably well,” Jade said. He gave Imaiqah and Alassa a significant look. “But it all depends on the exam results now.”

“I think we did well,” the Gorgon said. “But
someone
blew up a dummy.”

“There’s plenty more,” Jade said, unconcerned. “I blew up a dummy myself when I was a student.”

“See,” Alassa said. “Blowing up dummies is considered good practice.”

“They made me pay for it,” Jade said. “I don’t think they thought I took it seriously.”

Emily smiled at him. “Why?”

“Because I made a show of it,” Jade said. He shrugged. “Sergeant Miles said it was a waste of time and energy.”

The door opened again. Aloha stepped into the room, carrying a small wooden box under her arm. Her dark face twisted into a smile when she looked at Emily, then she closed the door behind her and walked over to the wooden table. Emily rose to her feet and walked over to join her as Aloha put the box down, then opened it. Inside, there were several sheets of charmed parchment. Magic crackled over them as Aloha picked them up and placed them gingerly on the tabletop.

“I had to spend several gold pieces to buy this lot,” Aloha said, as the others gathered round her. “The price of parchment has skyrocketed in the past few months.”

Emily winced, inwardly. That was her fault. Introducing paper had seemed a good idea at the time, but it was now so easy to produce that it was pushing parchment-makers out of business. Unsurprisingly, stocks of parchment itself had started to fall, even though it was used in a number of magic spells and rituals. Emily suspected that the problem would eventually sort itself out — there would still be a demand for parchment from magicians and their students — but for the moment it was harder to get decent parchment. It didn’t make life any easier for struggling students.

“I can pay for it,” Alassa offered.

“I managed to get a grant for materials,” Aloha said, as she finished emptying the box. “But they may force me to repay some of it, once they’ve finished assessing my project.”

She looked at Emily. “Or assessing the degree to which I...borrowed...one of your ideas.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily said. “I don’t intend to claim credit for anything.”

The thought made her smile, inwardly. She knew she was no slouch when it came to practical magic, but Aloha was a genius. Emily suspected Aloha was the brightest — certainly the most capable — student in Whitehall. The idea behind the charmed parchment might have been
Emily’s
— more accurately, it had been something copied from Earth — but it had been Aloha who had made it work.

“I don’t feel good about using one of your ideas,” Aloha admitted.

“You made it work,” Emily reminded her. “I wasn’t able to do that for myself.”

“Yet,” Aloha muttered. She cleared her throat. “I would remind you, all of you, that this ritual requires blood. If any of you have a problem with that, say so now or forever hold your peace.”

Emily swallowed, uneasily. She knew — she had very good reason to know — just how dangerous it could be to let someone else have even a drop of her blood. Blood magic could be used to manipulate her mind, force her to do things she would normally never have considered, even control her body like a puppet. None of the others looked any happier at the prospect, even though they’d all known it was coming. To give up a drop of blood was to risk giving up control.

Jade stepped forward. “I’m ready,” he said.

Aloha passed him a tiny silver knife. Like the others Emily had used in the past, it was charmed to prevent the cut from hurting. Jade held his hand over the parchment, then nicked his flesh with the knife. Blood dripped from his palm and down to the parchment, where it pooled on the sheets. Alassa shot Jade an unreadable look, then took the knife and made a cut in her own palm. Emily braced herself, when it was her turn, and then cut herself, very lightly. Cutting her skin wasn’t easy, even with a charmed blade. It was hard to force herself to press the knife against her flesh.

“We begin,” Aloha said, as she produced a silver wand and used it to mix the blood together. “Let the magic flow...”

Emily nearly took a step backwards as spells — complex spells — flared up around the parchment, shimmering into life. There was a moment when she thought everything had failed, but then the magic sank into the parchments and faded from her awareness. Aloha returned the wand to her belt — it was rare for any Whitehall student to use a wand, unless one needed to cast a series of complex spells — and then picked up the first sheet of parchment. It looked indistinguishable from the others.

“This would be yours, I think,” she said to Jade. She passed it to him. “How does it feel?”

“Like magic,” Jade said. “It’s tingling.”

Aloha nodded, passing Emily a second sheet. It felt like a normal piece of parchment to her, so Aloha took it back and gave her another. This one tingled with magic as soon as she touched it with her bare hands. The remaining pieces of parchment were rapidly exchanged until everyone had a piece that tingled for them, bound — literally — to their blood. Anyone else who happened to look at the parchment would see nothing but just another piece of blank parchment.

“Right,” Aloha said. She reached into her robes and produced a pencil. “Let me see if this works.”

She wrote a brief sentence on her parchment. There was a tingle of magic, then the sentence appeared on Emily’s parchment. Emily scanned it, then produced a pencil of her own and wrote a response. Chuckles from the others told her that they’d all seen her words; they hurried to write comments of their own. Emily giggled as their words all appeared in front of her, shown in their handwriting. They all had neater handwriting than she did.

But that isn’t surprising
, she thought.
They were all taught to write precisely, because missing a line in one place could completely change the meaning of a sentence. I was taught to write in English
.

“We could do with a way to say who’s writing,” Alassa said, as she wrote another comment on her parchment. “And a way to send private remarks.”

Imaiqah snickered. “You want to send a message to your boyfriend?”

Alassa flushed. “It would be a useful thing to do,” she said.

Emily concealed her amusement. Alassa was the Crown Princess of Zangaria, Heir to the Throne, Duchess of Iron...as well as the holder of several dozen other titles, all of which were solemnly recited every time she stepped into her father’s throne room. Whatever she might want, she couldn’t have a boyfriend. Hell, it had only been two years ago when a number of princes had sought her hand in marriage. If the Iron Duchess — the
former
Iron Duchess — and her co-conspirators hadn’t launched their coup attempt, it was possible she would
already
be married. The thought of her having a boyfriend was laughable.

“That’s not possible,” Aloha admitted. “These six sheets of parchment are bonded together. What is written on one of them, by the designated user, will appear on all of them. Anyone who isn’t included in the original charm won’t be able to see the words, no matter what revealing spells they cast.”

“So don’t go writing sweet nothings to your small army of boyfriends,” Alassa said. Imaiqah flushed. “Can you add someone else to the list?”

“No, sadly,” Aloha said. “If you wanted to include someone else, you’d have to have the entire spell redone.”

“Which wouldn’t be easy,” the Gorgon said. As always, there was a very faint hiss underlying her words. “No one would want to leave their blood anywhere, no matter how secure, just so someone new could be added.”

“Yeah,” Aloha said. “That’s the problem.”

Emily shrugged. “But it’s miles better than anything we had before,” she said, reassuringly. “I think you will have passed with honors.”

“It still wouldn’t have been possible without you,” Aloha muttered.

“But
you
made it work,” Emily said, again.

Aloha was right, she had to admit. Emily had remembered the concept of Internet chat programs and tried to devise a way to make one work, magically. But it had been more — much more — than merely finding a way to link six sheets of parchment together. If she hadn’t introduced English letters, it would have been hard for anyone to use the parchments without wasting a great deal of space. Old Script might be precise to the point of being thoroughly anal, but it was also far too complex for simple conversation.

“I have a question,” Imaiqah said. “How do you wipe the sheet?”

“A simple erasing spell would suffice,” Aloha said. “I did try to get the sheet to remember everything written, but it didn’t last. If someone’s parchment runs out of space, it will automatically start erasing the older messages.”

So no scrolling up or down
, Emily thought.
If someone writes something embarrassing, they can keep writing in the hopes of making it vanish.

She shook her head as she placed her parchment on the table, then folded it up and placed it in her pocket. Everyone on Earth seemed to like the idea of instant gratification, but the Allied Lands knew better. The chat parchments were so much better than anything they’d had before, like the English letters, stirrups and several other minor ideas from Earth, that everyone would be delighted when they saw them. Aloha would probably become rich, just marketing the chat parchments to her fellow students. It probably wouldn’t be long before they were unceremoniously banned from class.

It may be years before someone comes up with something as functional as a computer
, she thought.
But I can wait
.

“Thank you,” she said, sincerely.

“You’re welcome,” Aloha said. She ran her hand through her dark hair. “I had the idea of making the parchments tingle slightly when someone writes a message, so you can keep it in your pocket and look at it when someone writes you a message. You can alter the overlapping charms, if you wish, to make it sound a bell instead. But that would be rather noticeable.”

They’ll be banned from class for sure
, Emily thought, amused. Her old teachers on Earth had always banned cell phones from their classes, which hadn’t stopped a number of students from smuggling them in anyway and using them when the teacher wasn’t looking.
But someone could always turn off the noise
.

Alassa frowned. “What would happen if someone burned the parchment?”

“You’d lose your link to the network,” Aloha said. She’d learned that word from Emily, back when they’d been discussing the concept. “It might bring down the entire network, depending on precisely what happens. I’ve tried with a couple of linked parchments in the past, but never with six separate groups of interlinked charms. Try not to do it.”

“We won’t,” Emily said. “How do you feel about
your
exams?”

“I should have the results in a week,” Aloha said. Fourth Years were always marked first, Emily had been told; they were either leaving the school, with basic qualifications, or returning for Fifth Year. “And then...Fifth Year. I hear tell they’re going to have someone special come to teach you and me.”

“Martial Magic,” Emily guessed.

“Yes,” Aloha said. “We’re outside the standard course now.”

Emily shrugged. There was something to be said for repeating the standard course time and time again. She’d failed Second Year Martial Magic, after all, and even picking up on it again after returning from Mountaintop had still left her in limbo. She was expecting to have to repeat the entire year during Fourth Year. It would be a shame, in many ways, but she had to admit she needed the practice.

She looked up as the door opened and Frieda stepped into the room. Her former Shadow had blossomed in Whitehall, although Emily still felt a little responsible for her. It was almost like having a little sister.

“The Grandmaster wants to see you,” Frieda said. “He didn’t sound pleased when he spoke to me.”

“Maybe that was because you were playing Freeze Tag again,” Aloha said, not unkindly. “I thought you and the rest of the new bugs had already got in trouble for it.”

“That was an accident,” Frieda protested. “And they didn’t say we shouldn’t play!”

Emily smiled, and rose to her feet. “Do you mind the others staying here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jade said. “I have to go back to the sergeant, anyway. He probably wants me to do more hard work. Character-forming, he calls it.”

“We will see you afterwards,” Alassa said, with narrowed eyes. “You have to try on a dress or two.”

Emily groaned, then smoothed down her robes. “If we must,” she said, with a sigh. “But nothing
too
revealing.”

Alassa grinned. “Just you wait,” she said. “Wait and see.”

Chapter Two

O
NCE, EMILY RECALLED, NAVIGATING THE HALLWAYS
and corridors of Whitehall had been immensely difficult. They changed frequently, in unpredictable ways; a corridor that had once led to the library might, the following day, lead directly to the Great Hall. Now, finding her way was merely a matter of listening to the magic running through the school. She walked up three flights of stairs and down a long stone corridor, lined with portraits of famous people from the past, then stopped as she saw the new portrait hanging from the wall. It was yet another painting of her.