Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (34 page)

The older woman let out a strangled cry, then subsided. Emily took her pulse – at least she knew how to do that, thanks to lectures at Whitehall – and realized, to her relief, that it was growing stronger. She didn’t let go until Lady Barb sagged, then fell into a more comfortable sleep. Emily lowered her back onto the blanket, then stood up and walked back to the stream to pick up some more water. When she got back, Lady Barb was still, but clearly breathing normally. Emily mopped her forehead, settling down to wait.

Magic can’t solve everything,
she thought, bitterly. It would have been so much easier if she could just click her fingers and put everything to rights. But she couldn’t. Magic had caused the problem in the first place – and, unlike some of the nastier hexes and curses she’d seen, it wasn’t something magic could fix.
What if it had been worse
?

She reached for her book and tried to read another two chapters, but her mind refused to concentrate, leaving her with no memory of the words she’d read. Frustrated, she stood up and started to pace the edge of the wards. It was early afternoon and it didn’t look like they would be moving anytime soon. She damned herself for her selfishness a moment later. Lady Barb had been on the verge of a very serious illness, perhaps even death, yet she’d been thinking more of her own convenience rather than her mentor.

A rustling sound behind her made her snap around, just in time to see Lady Barb sit upright. “That was unpleasant,” she said, tartly. She still sounded weak, but she was definitely getting better. “Water?”

Emily filled a mug from the cauldron, then used a spell to cool the liquid before passing it to Lady Barb.

“Thank you,” Lady Barb said, between sips. She finished the water; Emily hastily filled the second mug, then refilled the first. “You’re a good nurse.”

Emily flushed, wondering just how much Lady Barb remembered.

“We’ll stay here for the night,” Lady Barb said, looking up at the sky. “We should be able to start walking again tomorrow.”

“Good,” Emily said, doubtfully. She looked the older woman up and down, noting just how badly her clothes were soaked with sweat. “Will you be all right to walk by then?”

“Probably,” Lady Barb said. “Once the peak is over, magic tends to replenish itself fairly quickly. A few more hours of sleep probably won’t hurt.”

She pulled herself to her feet, then staggered through the wards and over into the bushes to answer nature’s call. Emily returned to the cauldron and brewed up another mug of Kava, although she knew she’d have problems sleeping. She didn’t have any way to calculate just how much caffeine was in the drink, but a mug or two had kept her awake over long nights when she’d been trying to finish an essay at the last moment. There was probably more caffeine in Kava than the average cup of coffee.

Lady Barb returned, stumbling slightly as she walked. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she said, as she sat down on the blanket. “I don’t know if I would have made it without you.”

Emily gave her a long look. “Did you know that would happen?”

“I knew it was a possibility,” Lady Barb said, mildly. “But it had to be done.”

“You shouldn’t have risked your life,” Emily protested. “I...you could have
died
.”

Lady Barb coughed, rudely. “Remind me,” she said. “Just who was it who stormed King Randor’s castle,
alone
, to save her friend?”

“That’s different,” Emily said.

“Oh,” Lady Barb said. “How so?”

Emily found herself struggling for words. The truth, she suspected, was that she didn’t want to lose the older woman. They might have started with a prickly relationship, but they’d become friends – or as close to friends as they could, given their relative positions. And there were times when she thought of Lady Barb as a mother...

“I don’t know,” she said, finally. She wasn’t sure she wanted to confess the truth. “I just...I don’t want to lose you.”

Lady Barb reached out and touched her hand. “I am a Mediator of the Allied Lands,” she said, softly. “Putting my life in danger is part of the job. In this case, we have a rogue magician – perhaps a necromancer – running around, doing something that is almost certainly dangerous. It is my duty to take whatever risks are necessary to stop him before it gets too far out of hand.”

Emily scowled. As soon as a necromancer went to work, she suspected, it was already out of hand.

“And in this case, I needed to snap Lord Gorham back to normal as soon as possible,” Lady Barb added. “Whatever the necromancer wanted, Emily, those runes were a big part of it.”

“But what did he want?” Emily asked, mournfully. “It makes no sense!”

“That generally means that we’re missing part of the puzzle,” Lady Barb reassured her. “But the sooner we get on to Easter, the better. I have a feeling we’ll find our answers there.”

She looked over at the preserved rabbit. Emily took the hint, canceled the spells and then passed the warm meat to Lady Barb.

“We will take a slight detour to a village on the route,” Lady Barb said, as she ate. “I’d prefer not to have to forage for food any more than strictly necessary.”

Emily nodded, remembering foraging expeditions with Sergeant Miles. He’d assigned push-ups for every poisonous mushroom they’d picked by accident, then lectured them on the dangers of eating the wrong thing. She’d privately resolved never to forage for food again if she had any alternative. Even something that was technically safe to eat could make her very unwell.

“I saw a dragon last night,” she said, changing the subject. “Is that a good sign?”

“It’s a good sign as long as it didn’t try to eat you,” Lady Barb said. “The mountainfolk tend to leave dragons and their eggs alone, but there’s no shortage of idiots who come up to the mountains in hopes of catching and bleeding a young dragon. Or trying to take an egg before it’s hatched.”

Emily scowled. Dragon’s Blood was one of the most terrifyingly magical substances in the world – and pricy too, even for a baroness. And dragons didn’t like being hunted, though it often took them some time to notice. She’d read stories of villages being attacked years after the hunters had been and gone. But then, everyone agreed that dragons were truly alien. As far as she knew, only she and Void had talked to a dragon in recent years.

She asked Lady Barb about the dishcloth-creatures, but Lady Barb couldn’t identify them from her description and suggested she wrote down the details for Mistress Kirdáne. Emily found her notebook and wrote down everything she remembered, then replaced the security spells and returned it to her bag. It was temping to think that the creatures would be named after her...assuming, of course, they hadn’t already been discovered. There were more things in the woods than held in Whitehall’s zoo.

“Make sure you get some sleep,” Lady Barb ordered, as she lay back down on her blanket. “We’ll have to walk fast tomorrow – and find a place for some practice. And a swim.”

“If you’re up to it,” Emily said, firmly. “We can stay here for another day or two if necessary.”

“I’d prefer to avoid it,” Lady Barb said. “And I think you’d get bored.”

Emily blushed, embarrassed. Was she really that easy to read?

D
ESPITE EMILY’S CONCERNS, THEY LEFT THE
campsite the following morning, walking up a long rocky pathway that eventually led them to a gorgeous, spring-fed lake nestled within a rich, green valley. There was no sign of any other humans, apart from an abandoned hut that seemed to have been deserted for years. She couldn’t help wondering if there was a danger here they couldn’t see, like the Night Walker. But nothing suggested itself as she perched on a rock and watched as Lady Barb undressed and plunged into the cold water.

“Come on in,” she called, as her head broke the surface. “The water’s fine.”

Emily shook her head. Even if the water hadn’t been freezing cold – she’d dipped her fingers into the lake, once she’d checked for unpleasant surprises – she wouldn’t have felt comfortable undressing and skinny-dipping. Some of the boys did it on camping trips with the sergeants, but Emily had never felt the urge to join them. Some of their invitations had been downright rude and unwelcome.

She took some water and boiled it as Lady Barb swam effortlessly from one side of the lake to the other. It was impossible to tell that she’d been ill, not considering the speed she was moving; Emily couldn’t help feeling a little admiration. She’d learned how to swim at Whitehall, between Alassa and Sergeant Miles, but she wasn’t a very strong swimmer. Lady Barb, on the other hand, tore her way through the water like a rocket.

By the time she emerged from the water – Emily couldn’t help thinking of the very first James Bond movie – there was boiling water ready to make Kava.

Emily looked away as Lady Barb dried and dressed, then washed half of her clothing in the lake. It wasn’t ideal, Emily suspected, but they couldn’t do anything else until they reached the next town, where they could hire someone to wash their clothes. The last time she’d washed something herself, it had shrunk so badly she’d had to use magic to fix it.

“You can take a dip now, if you like,” Lady Barb urged. She tied her hair back in a bun, then took the mug Emily offered her. “The water isn’t
that
bad.”

Emily shook her head, firmly.

Lady Barb smiled, then drank her Kava. “I understand,” she said. “What did you do while I was...unwell?”

“Pocket dimensions,” Emily said. She outlined her practice, confessing that the dimension never lasted very long without the square. “I just can’t get it to work right.”

“You need practice,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “But I was thinking we would practice something else today.”

Emily looked up, interested. She loved learning new types of magic and mental disciplines, even though the more she learned, the more she had to work to keep them all straight in her mind. She’d been told that the different schools of magic were linked together, but she’d also been warned not to think about it until Fifth Year.

“You know how to evade someone, of course,” Lady Barb said. “I want you to evade me.”

Emily hesitated. Lady Barb had almost choked to death the previous night. Even if she didn’t remember,
Emily
did. Asking might get her head bitten off – or worse – but she couldn’t just follow orders, not now.

“Are you really well enough to chase me?”

“Yes,” Lady Barb said. Her eyes were flinty hard, but her tone was even. “You don’t always get to be at your best when you have to fight. Now...do as I tell you.”

Emily swallowed. She’d never been
that
good at evading her fellow students, particularly the ones who had grown up in the countryside. Sergeant Miles was an absolute devil at tracking down his students, to the point where some whispered he’d cheated. And then he’d proved he’d used no magic at all.

“All right,” she said, after a moment. “How long should I try and stay ahead of you?”

“At least thirty minutes,” Lady Barb said, after a moment’s thought. “Same rules as Martial Magic. If I catch you before time runs out, you will do a push-up for each minute left.”

“Incentive,” Emily said, mimicking Sergeant Miles. He’d done the same, only less mercifully. On the other hand, it was great for building up upper body strength. “Is that the only thing we will be practicing?”

“No,” Lady Barb said. She glanced up at the sun, then smiled at Emily. “But the next thing can wait until I catch you.”

She put out the fire, then packed up the bags and swung them both over her shoulder. Emily smiled, although she knew that the older woman wasn’t really hampering herself too much. It wouldn’t give Emily much of an advantage. She stood, then turned and ran down the path into the woods. Once hidden by the trees, she slowed and moved off the path, watching where she put her feet. There were fewer rocks under the trees, forcing her to walk carefully, but at least she wouldn’t be leaving footprints behind her. Bracing herself, she kept moving, wondering how long she had to hide. Outrunning Lady Barb probably wasn’t an option.

Finding a large tree, she scrambled up it into the branches, marvelling at just how many skills she’d picked up over the previous two years. She’d certainly never climbed a tree before in her life. But there was no time to reflect. She heard the sound of someone crashing through the forest and held herself as still as possible. It wasn’t good enough.

“Five minutes to track you down,” Lady Barb called from below. “That was pathetic.”

Emily held herself very still. It was just possible that Lady Barb was bluffing...

The tree shook violently and she yelped, then scrambled off the branch as quickly as possible. Lady Barb smirked as Emily dropped down to the ground.

Emily scowled at the older woman. She couldn’t have caught her so fast unless...a quick check revealed that Lady Barb had sneaked a tracking hex onto her clothes, before she ran into the forest. If she’d thought to look, she could have removed it before hiding.

“Cheat,” she said, with some feeling.

“If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying,” Lady Barb said. Her smirk grew wider. “I believe that’s twenty-five push-ups.”

Emily groaned, but dropped to the ground and started to count them off, one by one. At least she was better at it now, thankfully. The first time Sergeant Harkin had made her do them, she’d had aching arms for hours afterwards, until Jade had helped her find a potion that made her feel better. Lady Barb watched until she had finished, then helped Emily to her feet.

“You should have looked for the hex,” Lady Barb said. Emily glowered at her. “Ready to try again?”

“Yes,” Emily said. She paused, wondering if she dared push her luck. “Will you do push-ups if you don’t catch me?”

“Depends,” Lady Barb said. She turned around, looking back towards the lake. “We’ll see how well you do.”

Emily turned and fled into the trees, changing her path as soon as she removed the tracking hex. After a moment, she stuck another one on a tree, half-hoping that it would distract the older woman long enough for Emily to put some distance between them. She didn’t know how long Lady Barb would wait before she started to come after her, after all. This time, she crouched low behind a tree and hid herself behind a glamor. Without magic, Lady Barb would have to look very carefully for her if she wanted to succeed.