Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (42 page)

“Yes, Master,” Emily said. She nodded to the brothers, who smiled at her. “If you’ll come with me ...?”

She led them through the corridors and into the dining hall, where a number of other guests were being fed as they waited to learn if they would be allowed to stay or not. Emily was tempted to ask why they were traveling together, if one was a magician and the other a mundane, but she somehow managed to resist the urge. Magic was nowhere near as strong as it would become, in the future; a family might easily produce one magician and one mundane without finding it odd. And it wasn’t as if being a magician in this era was a bed of roses ...

“Thank you,” one of the brothers said. “Your master is very welcoming.”

“Lord Whitehall is a great man,” Emily said. It was hard to push enthusiasm into her voice, but she tried. “This is his dream.”

She nodded to them both, then hurried away. There was nothing for her to do until dinnertime, so she wandered down the stairs to the underground passageways and made her way into the statue chamber. Her wards remained active, keeping everyone out, but she didn’t dare start casting the spells that would freeze her, within the chamber, until her past self came along, nearly a thousand years in the future. The demon was still there, its presence silently mocking her.

Emily twisted her head, trying to
see
the creature. But it was always just at the corner of her eyes.

She gritted her teeth. “What do you want?”

Whitehall had told her not to try to talk to the demon. She had the feeling that it would be the very last straw. Even the kindest man in the world would have had some doubts, after Master Chambers had pointed out just how many people had died, since they’d met Emily in the nexus chamber. Whitehall might have accepted her as an apprentice, but an apprentice could be dismissed for disobedience ...

But she had to know what the demon wanted.

There was no answer. She reached out with her senses, probing where she knew the demon to be, but felt nothing beyond the bare fact of its existence. She’d wondered how the DemonMasters had coped with having a demonic presence looming over them ...now, she thought she knew the answer. The demonic aura must specifically exclude the magician who had summoned it. Perhaps it was deliberate on their part, she noted. It would be harder to manipulate someone into screwing up if there was a constant reminder of ever-present hostility surrounding the demon.

It’s just sitting there
, she thought.
And waiting
.

She puzzled over it as she strode towards the control center. Whitehall hadn’t known
much
about demons, but he’d been fairly clear that demons couldn’t remain in the mortal world without
something
binding them in place. A Book of Pacts was dangerous because demons were bound within its pages. And yet, the demon should have been trapped as long as the book itself was intact, not tied to Emily. No one had found Robin’s Book of Pacts ...

And if I destroyed it when I killed him
, she thought,
the demons should all have been thrown back into the Darkness
.

It made no sense. And that, in her experience, generally meant that she was missing something. A piece of information, perhaps, or a loophole that only made sense to a demonic mind. She doubted demons changed allegiances so quickly. Demons didn’t
have
allegiances, not really. They resented being used by humans and were quick to take advantage of any mistakes their masters might make. Robin could have done something that allowed the demon to slip itself to Emily ...

... But if that was the case, why was the demon still sitting there?

“Emily,” Master Wolfe said. He stood by one of the crystal columns, watching the spellware slowly bubbling into place. “I was wondering when you would make your way down here.”

Emily had to smile. Master Wolfe seemed to be the only person who wasn’t intent on treating her as a freak, a monster, or an unexploded bomb.
And
he’d stood up for her more than once.

“I’ve been busy,” she said. She strode over to join him, then frowned as she spotted Master Keldor bending over the Warden. “Master.”

“Emily,” Keldor said, gravely.

He didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, which was something of a relief. Emily had thought Keldor was definitely part of Master Chambers’ faction. He’d certainly voted
against
the plan to turn the castle into a school. But then,
his
brand of magic wasn’t under threat, although Emily knew there would come a time when death magics were banned at Whitehall. Perhaps that would happen long after Keldor’s death.

There was an odd twinge of magic around Master Wolfe, she discovered as she stepped up to stand next to him. It felt familiar, although she couldn’t place it. He’d been experimenting heavily with the nexus point, using it to prove that certain spells worked before he started to modify them so a magician could cast them without needing a boost. Maybe he’d started work on something she’d use herself, in the future. He certainly seemed as excitable as ever.

“I thought this might interest you,” Master Wolfe explained. He jabbed a finger at the crystal, where a piece of spellware was slowly taking shape. “This will respond to any burst of magic above a sustained level.”

Emily nodded. Whitehall and his peers could
sense
magic, but they were largely blinded by their own slop. Emily half-suspected that Master Chambers couldn’t sense her at all, which might explain the contempt he felt for her. He
knew
she’d helped with the nexus point—and dozens of other things—but he still couldn’t sense her power. She had no
reason
to slop her power everywhere, just to show off.

“Clever,” she said. It was basic, compared to some of the detection spells she’d used in her own time, but it was an order of magnitude more advanced than anything she’d seen in the past. “And what does it do?”

“It automatically absorbs such a burst of power,” Master Wolfe explained. “The prospect of someone accidentally unleashing a blast of raw magic will thus be eliminated.”

And you added it after I blasted Robin
, Emily thought.
And you, of all people, know you don’t need vast power to be dangerous
.

She looked at him, sharply. “And what if someone casts a killing spell with less power?”

“That will be harder,” Master Wolfe admitted. “I can track bursts of magic throughout the castle, as you can imagine, but stopping it will be difficult. The background noise from the nexus point--” he nodded up towards the sound of
thrumming
“--makes it harder to separate the real spells from the random flashes of magic.”

“That will change,” Emily said. “At least you could prove what happened if there was a ... a disagreement.”

Master Wolfe gave her a sympathetic look. “I was trying to analyze the remains of his spell,” he said. “But there wasn’t enough to
prove
what it was designed to do.”

Emily winced. She
had
managed to take enough of the spell apart—with the aid of a couple of memory charms—to allow her to fill in the blanks. If anything, she’d
underestimated
the danger of the spell. Using it on someone—anyone—would do more than cripple them for life; it would shatter them. She would have sooner dosed someone with love potion than cast that spell on them. It was unforgivable.

And if he’d managed to work out how to cast the spell
, she thought,
he’d probably wind up using it himself
.

She pushed the thought out of her head as Master Wolfe started to show her his other projects, moving around the room as he pointed to pieces of parchments and scraps of notes scattered everywhere. Plans for expanding the interior of the school, plans for crafting wards so strong that even the most powerful magician couldn’t dent them, plans for rooms that would become spellchambers, given enough time ... she couldn’t help thinking, with a twinge of pity, that Professor Locke would have been disappointed. And yet, what she was seeing was genuinely wonderful. The birth of a whole new world.

“It’s interesting to see how different materials respond to magic,” Master Wolfe said. “I’ve actually approached Bernard to see if I can take Julianne for an apprentice. She’s starting her own project, testing and retesting the plants taken from the forest. If we put our heads together ...”

“I’m sure Bernard will like the idea,” Emily said. Master Wolfe wasn’t anything like as old as Lord Alfred—and she knew there were some old men married to very young girls—but Julianne was already married. “And Master Whitehall and I set the precedent.”

“Both you and Julianne already have some training,” Master Wolfe said. “Anyone without that training will require a more ... intimate ... relationship until they master their magic. It may cause complications.”

Emily shrugged, but she had to admit he might have a point. She’d taught Frieda and Julianne some magic, yet both of them had already been using magic before she came along, although Julianne hadn’t realized it. Someone starting completely from scratch ... Mistress Irene had taught her, but Mistress Irene was an experienced teacher. It would take time for Master Wolfe and his fellows to develop the techniques she’d used so carefully.

“I’ve been working with human ...
materials
in potions,” Master Keldor commented. He looked oddly nervous as he walked over to join them, an odd twitch visible—just for a second—on his face. “Adding human blood to some concoctions seems to have a striking effect.”

“A dangerous effect,” Emily said. Was she looking at the start of blood magic? But then, she had a feeling that
some
blood magic was already in common use. Bernard and Julianne’s wedding rite suggested it. “You might discover that you had cursed someone—or yourself.”

“True,” Master Keldor agreed. “But normally I work with the freshly dead.”

“There is magic in murder,” Master Wolfe mused. “But the surge of power is uncontrollable.”

Emily gave him a sharp glance. History said that the necromantic rite would be discovered and rediscovered, time and time again, but it didn’t have to be born
here
and
now
. Master Wolfe had the nexus point. He didn’t
need
necromancy. And if it stayed buried, it wouldn’t taint Whitehall’s early days ...

“My master used to caution me against working too close to a murder scene,” Master Keldor commented. He glanced upwards, just for a second. “He said there were black auras surrounding murder, even though working with materials from a murdered body could be quite rewarding.”

“I see,” Emily said. She’d never heard of that in her time. But then, what little she’d learned of death magics hadn’t been pleasant. “Was he right?”

“I never had any problems,” Master Keldor said. “But the remains lose their potency very quickly.”

He glanced upwards again, then shrugged. “I might just have been unlucky,” he said. He looked back at the Warden, lying on the table. “And now I have a chance to study something entirely new.”

Emily frowned. “Are you modifying him?”

“A little,” Master Keldor said. “But it’s quite a frustrating process.”

He picked up a hammer. “I’d like to fiddle with his intelligence. And probably smack him on the head with this.”

“I don’t think that will help,” Master Wolfe said.

“No,” Master Keldor said. “I don’t imagine it will.”

He hefted the hammer and smacked it into Master Wolfe’s head, hard.

M
ASTER
W
OLFE DROPPED LIKE A SACK
of potatoes, his body hitting the ground with a thud.

Emily gaped in shock, then snapped up her hand to cast a spell. But she felt the wards pressing down on her as soon as the magic came to her fingers, threatening to turn her own power back against her. Master Keldor let out an odd little giggle as she started backwards, then waved his hand at the door. It slammed closed and locked with an audible thump.

“Not bad,” he said. He smirked at her as she kept backing away. “Master Wolfe does good work, doesn’t he?”

Emily swallowed, hard. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,” Master Keldor said. “Master Wolfe thought it might be a good idea to program the wards to keep your magic under control, should anything ...
unfortunate
happen. And as long as I keep
my
link to the wards, you have no magic.
What
a good idea, would you not say?”

Fuck
, Emily thought.

She tested the wards, then cursed under her breath. Master Wolfe, for once, hadn’t tried to be subtle. He’d just tied the wards into the nexus point, raw power on a scale no living magician could hope to match. There were no weak points for her to exploit, no glitches in the spells she could use as a starting point as she began to unravel them ... nothing, but a solid wall of magic pressing down on her. The merest attempt to cast a spell would see it rebound on her.

“No,” she said, trying desperately to think of a plan. If she kept him talking, she might just be able to think of something. “It was a very bad idea.”

She glared at him as a piece of the puzzle fell into place. “You’re working for Chambers, aren’t you?”

Keldor moved forward with lightning speed and slapped her hard, right across her scarred cheek; she tasted blood in her mouth as she used the blow to throw herself to the side and try to get away from him. But he jumped forward and landed on top of her, shoving her body to the floor and holding her down with his weight. She tried to cast a spell anyway, despite the risk, but the magic refused to form. She couldn’t even release Aurelius! A moment later, he caught her hands, yanked them firmly behind her back and tied them tightly together. The knots were so tight she could feel the blood refusing to flow into her hands.

“I do not work
for
Chambers,” Keldor said. His voice was suspiciously affable as he hauled her to her feet and pushed her against the wall. “I am a
master magician
. I work
with
my fellow masters, not under them.”