The woman muttered a word under her breath, then jabbed her finger at Emily. A bolt of magic–no, a steady stream of magic–slammed into her wards, shoving her back as if it had physical force. Emily gritted her teeth, realizing that she was being dared into a pushing match…a pushing match she was too tired to win. She altered her wards desperately, deflecting the magic away from her, then hurled back a set of wardcracking spells Lady Barb had taught her. The woman dodged them, thankfully stopping her assault on Emily…
…And Jade slammed a spell into her back. Emily had never seen anything like it–it made a sound like a thunderclap when it struck home–but it was effective. It threw the woman right across the room, straight into a wall. The wall crumpled under the impact, but the woman’s wards held. She seemed to hang in the air for a second, surrounded by a bubble of pure magic, then land neatly on the battered floor. Emily couldn’t help wondering just how long it would be until the entire building collapsed.
“Go,” she snapped to Jade. Cat was too far away to help and she had no idea what had happened to the Levellers. “Hurry.”
The woman was advancing towards them. Emily braced herself, grimly aware that she was about to throw most of what she’d been taught out of the window, then started to walk across the floor, straight towards the woman. She’d lost her glamour, part of Emily’s mind noted; she was roughly the same height as Emily herself, with a sour pinched face and an expression that suggested she was sucking a lemon. And yet, she carried herself like a noblewoman. It was hard to tell where she’d been trained–Emily didn’t think the woman had been trained at Whitehall or Mountaintop–but it was clear that her trainers had done a good job. She was a good fighter.
“You know who I am,” she said, trying to buy time. “Who are you?”
The woman lunged forward, stabbing a wave of magic at Emily. Emily shoved back with all the power she could muster, slamming her magic into the woman as hard as she could. Raw magic crashed in all directions, cutting into the floor and ceiling. Emily heard pieces of stone crashing to the ground, the entire building shaking a moment before the floor gave way. She hastily cast a levitation spell as she fell, but the woman cancelled it a second later. It was all Emily could do to land safety.
“Emily,” Jade called.
The woman snapped off a nasty-looking spell at him. Emily glanced up, just in time to see the spell miss Jade and tear into the ceiling. She blinked in surprise–surely, Randor had given orders that Alassa was to be unharmed–and then threw herself at the woman, magic billowing around her. It was a poor technique, but it seemed to catch the woman by surprise; she stumbled back, almost falling. A second later, something caught hold of Emily and yanked her up and back. She landed neatly beside Jade.
“I told you to go,” she said. “I’ll get back to the portal in a minute.”
Jade looked at her. “Emily…”
Emily looked back at him. He was still carrying Imaiqah, her sleeping body resting on his shoulder. Alassa was nowhere to be seen, but Jade would have been freaking out if she’d been hurt. She’d probably been sent back to the portal. It would kill her, Emily knew, but without magic she was just dead weight. They would lose everything if she died while they were trying to rescue her.
“Go,” she ordered, keeping a wary eye on where the woman had to be. They didn’t dare run to the portal together. Turning their backs on the woman would be the last thing they’d do, ever. “Tell Cat to go too. I’ll jump through the portal as soon as you’re clear.”
“We’ll leave it open,” Jade said. “I…”
“Go,” Emily repeated. The woman hadn’t been beaten. Emily rather doubted she’d tasted the woman’s full power. She might just have decided there was no point in continuing the fight if Alassa was already gone–or dead–but Emily didn’t think they would be so lucky. No, the woman was considering her next move. “Now.”
Jade hesitated for a second, then turned and hurried back to the smashed floor and the portal beyond. Emily heard his footsteps retreating, hoping he’d have the sense to keep going rather than just pitch Imaiqah through the portal. He’d hate himself for leaving her behind, if only for a minute or two; he’d feel as though he’d abandoned her, he’d feel…
…Another surge of magic leapt through the air, aimed at the portal. Emily spun around and saw the woman, standing on the far side of the hole in the floor, making odd gestures towards the portal. She gasped in pain as the portal twisted, starting to spin out of shape; she thought she saw, just for a second, the entire building starting to fall in on itself. Horror ran through her as she hurled a blasting spell at the floor under the woman’s legs, trying to force her to save herself; the woman jumped up, running along the ceiling as if gravity had suddenly reversed itself. Emily glanced back as the magic surged again, just in time to see the portal collapse in on itself and snap out of existence. Jade and Imaiqah had escaped just in time.
The woman dropped down to the stone floor, landing with a neatness Emily could only admire. Her cowl had fallen back, and her clothes were mussed, but otherwise she didn’t seem to have exerted herself. Emily was painfully aware of the sweat running down her back and the throbbing pain at the back of her head. The wards were largely down. She could teleport out, if she had the power. But her mind was scrambled. She didn’t think she could teleport without risking complete disaster. And her opponent knew it too.
She forced herself to think, considering her options. She might be able to blast her way out of the Tower, now the wards were gone. Her magic would go through most of the guards like a knife through butter, but…but she didn’t think she had the power. Even if she made it out, she would run straight into the king’s other sorcerers. Randor would be dispatching every sorcerer and soldier under his command to the Tower, unless half of them were trying to track down the portal’s origin point. Jade and the others would have bare seconds to grab what they needed and teleport out. And the longer she could keep her enemies busy, the better.
Stall, Emily thought. Play for time.
She found her voice. “Who are you?”
The woman eyed her through her dark eyes. “Lady Matilda, Custodian of the Tower of Alexis,” she said. “And you’re the famous Emily.”
Emily nodded, curtly. The Custodian of the Tower of Alexis was a woman? It was the one thing she’d never expected from Randor. Randor might not be a complete misogynist, but he certainly seemed dismissive of women. And yet, in hindsight, he’d hired Lady Barb for a few years. Putting the Tower in a woman’s hands was a masterstroke. Even Emily hadn’t realized that the Custodian might be a woman. She’d automatically dismissed Matilda, along with every other woman at court, right from the start.
She tried to remember if she’d ever even heard of Matilda. There were hundreds–no, thousands–of noblewomen passing through Randor’s Court, from women who had power in their own right to women who were desperate to snag a husband or even become a mistress to a powerful man. Zangaria really had too many noblemen for its size, just like Pre-Revolutionary France. Alassa had openly admitted that she planned to have a cull, once she became Queen. And Matilda…if she’d ever been mentioned, Emily didn’t remember.
“The king has gone mad,” she said, carefully. Perhaps she could talk Matilda into letting her go. “Imprisoning his daughter…”
“Who committed an act of treachery against her father,” Matilda cut her off. She pointed a long finger at Emily. “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”
“I came to help a friend,” Emily said, silently measuring her power. Did she have enough to teleport out? Or should she try to fight? Or simply flee? If she could get out of sight, she could hide long enough to recuperate. “Why are you helping the king?”