Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (6 page)

“Most of the...more sensitive titles are kept hidden,” Lady Barb explained, as Emily followed her away from the stall. “If you happened to want a copy, you’d have to give the Bookseller’s Guild a request – and they’d find it for you, if they could. Some books you can’t have for love or money.”

She paused, nodding to another bookstall. “But you might have changed all that, Millie.”

Emily followed her gaze. The bookstall was crammed with books produced by a newfangled printing press, one of the later designs out of Zangaria. Unlike the previous stall, there were several copies of each title on display, just waiting for someone to pick them up. None of the titles looked particularly interesting, save two. One discussed famous magicians of the last century, the other claimed to be a history book. She picked the latter up and saw another book underneath. This one was a reprint of a textbook she recalled from First Year, one so rare that the only copies in Whitehall were in the library.

“Traditionalists say that the printing press takes something out of us,” the seller said, as she examined the book. “But for us, business is booming.”

Emily had to smile. The printing press had revolutionized the world already – and the pace of change was only going to increase. There were already dozens of newspapers in Zangaria and the rest of the Allied Lands, while producing copies of older books would help knowledge to spread quickly from place to place. In ten years, perhaps less, every student at Whitehall would be able to have their own copies of each and every textbook required for their studies. Emily almost envied them. As exams grew nearer, competition for rare copies of books only grew more and more fierce.

“You can look for books later,” Lady Barb said, firmly. “There are quite a few other people you should see.”

She pointed towards a group of women sitting behind a long table. Somewhat to Emily’s surprise, they were wearing face veils that concealed almost everything. Their robes were even more shapeless than Whitehall’s standard robes. Behind them, a second set of women wore chainmail bikinis and carried long swords as well as staffs. They glared at anyone who paid too much attention to the first set of women. Emily’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement. The table was almost completely empty, despite its size.

“They’re the Virgin Sisterhood,” Lady Barb explained. “There are certain rites that can only be performed by a maiden, a virgin girl. The women in veils are the virgins, the ones who can and will do the work. Their sisters, the ones behind them, are their guardians and protectors. If someone wanted to harm a maiden, their sisters would die in their defense.”

Emily found herself giving the women a second look. It was hard to take a chainmail bikini seriously, no matter how dramatic it looked. But perhaps wearing them was a statement, reminding everyone of their femininity, rather than an attempt at protection. “They’re combat sorceresses?”

“Some of them are,” Lady Barb said. “Others...are mere fighters, which doesn’t stop them being dangerous.”

She led Emily further into the tightly-packed mass of stalls, pointing out isolated items of interest along the way. “That storekeeper is selling love potions,” she said. “It’s barely legal; it’s charmed to ensure that only two people, who drink it willingly, are affected by the magic. The magical families tend to use them to ensure that a young couple remains in love long enough to produce children.”

Emily shuddered at the thought. Love potions were banned at Whitehall, considered effectively akin to rape.
Did it make a difference,
she thought,
if two people took a potion to bind them together? Or did it merely mean that they were raping themselves?

“Those charms are fidelity charms,” Lady Barb continued, jabbing a finger at another stall. “It makes it impossible to sleep with anyone other than your wife or partner. That potion is a conceptive potion. If you take it before sex, you will almost certainly become pregnant. Behind it, there’s a contraceptive potion. It’s stronger than anything you will be allowed to use at Whitehall.”

“Oh,” Emily said.

Lady Barb turned to look at her. “A little overwhelmed?”

“Just a little,” Emily confessed. The stalls seemed to be crowding in on her. She wanted to run and escape. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

Lady Barb nodded and led her through the crowd of people, heading towards a large tent on the edge of the Faire. Outside, a young girl – Emily estimated her age at thirteen, although it was impossible to be sure – was singing sweetly to the crowd. Emily hesitated, studying the girl’s face. She looked vaguely Chinese, mixed with European. If she had magic, it was impossible to tell.

Inside, there were tables, chairs and a handful of serving maids carrying trays of drink everywhere. Lady Barb motioned for Emily to sit down, then ordered two mugs of Kava from the maids, who nodded and leapt to obey. Emily found herself taking deep breaths as she focused her mind, remembering what the sergeants had taught her. Magic was always safer when used by a focused magician.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lady Barb said, as she sat down beside Emily. “The magic in the air gets to everyone, at first. You’ll grow used to it.”

Emily rubbed her forehead, feeling something throbbing under her skull. “Do you really?”

“It’s a sign of strong magic to react to magical fields,” Lady Barb reminded her. “You shouldn’t have forgotten that so quickly.”

She nodded towards the entrance. “See anyone you recognize?”

Emily looked, but it took her several moments to spot a familiar face. Melissa was standing in the open air, speaking to a woman who looked old enough to be her great-grandmother. Unlike Emily, she wasn’t wearing golden dress robes, but a white dress that showed off her long red hair and the shape of her body. It didn’t look as though Melissa was enjoying her discussion with the older woman.

“Melissa comes from a magical family,” Lady Barb said, quietly. “By now, she will be expected to enter into a marriage contract with someone approved by her family. Quite a few such contracts are made at the Faire.”

Emily felt a flicker of sympathy for Melissa, despite knowing just how badly Melissa could act, on occasion. She’d hated Alassa – at least the royal brat she’d been before encountering Emily – and that hatred had been transferred to Emily, when Emily had actually helped Alassa get through her basic classes. Since then, they’d sniped at each other constantly at Whitehall.

She looked up at Lady Barb. “What if Melissa says no?”

“Her family might disown her,” Lady Barb said, softly. “If they did, she would be obliged to make her own way in the world. Which she probably could – her tuition fees are paid, so she could certainly stay at Whitehall until Sixth Year if she tried hard. But I don’t know if she would do such a thing. Most people raised in magical families understand that they have a duty to help the family expand.”

Emily looked over at her. “Like you?”

Lady Barb gave her a sharp look. “Like me,” she said, after a moment. “But I never married.”

She nodded towards the door before Emily could question her further. “You may recognize someone else here,” she added, changing the subject. “Who do you see?”

Emily felt her heart leap into her mouth as she recognized the youth making his way towards the tent, following an older man with a grim expression on his face. He was older, his hair had been cropped to his skull and he walked with a confidence that outshone the young man Emily remembered, but there was no mistaking Jade. Emily found herself rising to her feet as they entered the tent, a silly smile spreading across her face. Whatever their relationship actually was – and she honestly didn’t know – it was genuinely good to see Jade again.

Jade cast a privacy ward in the air, then smiled back at her. “Emily,” he said. She couldn’t help noticing that his face had acquired a couple of new scars. “How are you?”

The man beside him cleared his throat, loudly.

“This is Master Grey, my master,” Jade said, introducing the man. “Master, this is Emily of Cockatrice.”

Master Grey met Emily’s eyes as she curtseyed, then introduced Lady Barb. She couldn’t help thinking of a monk; bald, muscular and grimly determined to trample over whatever opposition barred his way to his destination. His eyes were dark and cold, studying her as though she was something he’d scraped off his shoe.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Somehow, Emily found it hard to believe him.

“W
ELL,” LADY BARB SAID, AFTER THE
maids had served them all Kava, “how have you been coping with your new apprentice?”

Master Grey gave her a long considering look. “Well enough,” he said, heavily. “And yourself?”

Emily exchanged a glance of mutual embarrassment with Jade. She’d heard that some children found their parents permanently embarrassing, particularly when their friends had met them, but it was never a sensation she had experienced – until now. Hearing Master Grey and Lady Barb exchange careful compliments – as if Jade and Emily weren’t even there – was definitely embarrassing. And then there was the way Master Grey looked at her while drinking his Kava.

“We are currently undergoing a temporary arrangement,” Lady Barb said, stiffly. “She cannot enter a full apprenticeship until she leaves school.”

Master Grey lifted his eyebrows. “Tell me,” he said, addressing Emily directly, “how did you defeat the Mimic?”

“The Grandmaster starved it of magic,” Emily said. It was the official cover story; the Grandmaster had flatly forbidden anyone who knew the truth to share it. “And then it died.”

Master Grey didn’t look as though he believed her. “And how did you kill Shadye?”

Emily felt sweat prickling on her forehead. “Through magic,” she said, finally. “And...”

Lady Barb cleared her throat. “The Sorcerer’s Rule protects her,” she said. “And such knowledge should not be shared widely.”

She looked over at Jade. “Why don’t you young folk chat over there while we...discuss matters?”

Emily stood up before Jade could say a word. Jade blinked in surprise, but followed her over to a table on the far side of the tent. The maids gave them an enquiring glance, then left them alone as Jade cast a privacy ward. Emily looked down at the table as she sat down, feeling utterly unsure of herself. What did Master Grey think of her? Nothing good, she was sure.

“I’m sorry about him,” Jade said, awkwardly. “He’s obsessed with defeating the necromancers.”

Emily had to smile. They
did
sound like a pair of children commiserating about their incredibly embarrassing parents. But then, apprentices were bound to their masters until the apprenticeship came to an end. In one sense, Master Grey was Jade’s father – or at least someone standing in his father’s place.

“He seems to have agreed with you,” Emily said, frantically casting around for something to say. “Have you enjoyed yourself?”

Jade brightened, slightly. “I’ve had a very good time, but a very hard time,” he said. “Master Grey thinks that Sergeant Harkin was too soft.”

Emily winced in sympathy. Sergeant Harkin had pushed his trainees relentlessly, teaching them never to surrender or simply give up. No one would have called him soft, certainly no one who had seen how he treated his trainees. But then, with more than a handful of students, he hadn’t had time to give everyone his personal attention. An apprentice was assured of the personal attention of his master.

She listened with genuine interest as Jade outlined a handful of stories. Master Grey believed in plunging his apprentices into the deep end, apparently; they’d started out near the Desert of Death, then explored the mountain range near Whitehall in hopes of finding Shadye’s tunnel before another necromancer could discover it. Emily had a private suspicion that the tunnel had collapsed when Shadye had died, but she knew the Allied Lands couldn’t take it for granted. It was only a matter of time before Shadye’s lands were absorbed by another necromancer.

“The rumors say you beat the Mimic in single combat,” Jade explained, when he’d finished. “No one knows quite what happened.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Compared to some of the stories about her, including the ones that implied the use of forbidden sex magic, that story was almost reasonable. But it still wasn’t true.

“I just helped to locate it,” she said. That much, at least, was common knowledge within Whitehall. “And I passed all of my exams, save one.”

Jade quirked an eyebrow. “Martial Magic?”

Emily nodded, embarrassed.

Jade reached over and patted her hand. “You’ve already had a year I never had,” he pointed out, dryly. “By the time you leave Whitehall, you will have a far better grounding than I did. Master Grey had to teach me so much.”

Emily looked down at her hand, feeling her emotions spin around until she was unsure of what she felt. She disliked being touched, at least without invitation, but Jade made her feel...nothing. Was that even remotely normal?

Jade looked up. Emily followed his gaze. Master Grey was standing, but still speaking to Lady Barb.

“Emily,” he said, quickly, “will you walk out with me this evening?”

Emily hesitated. Was he asking her out on a date?

Of course he is, idiot
, she told herself.

Dating wasn’t something she’d done on Earth, not when she was considered weird by just about everyone...and hadn’t dared expose herself in any case. And, at Whitehall, her obscure social status made it harder for people to ask her out...if, of course, they managed to look past her defeat of Shadye. Jade was the first person who had expressed interest in Emily herself, rather than her genes. But her personal feelings were incredibly conflicted. Part of her wanted to accept – she trusted Jade – and part of her wanted to run to Lady Barb and hide.

“I will,” she said, forcing the words out. “And thank you for coming...”

Jade smiled. “My master is one of the guards here,” he said. “I wasn’t really given a choice.”

Master Grey dispelled the privacy wards, then nodded for Jade to follow him out of the tent. Emily watched him go, then looked up at Lady Barb. The older woman had a pinched, disapproving expression on her face that made her look older, somehow. Emily hesitated, then told her about Jade asking her out.