Someone who wasn’t there probably would, Emily thought. She knew Frieda had been abused and Alassa had been neglected, but she didn’t really comprehend how bad it must have been. They’d think I went too far.
She sighed, inwardly. Objectively ... there was no objectivity, not when abuse was concerned. One might argue that regular beatings were better—or worse—than a constant torrent of emotional abuse, but the victim wouldn’t care. She’d just want the abuse to stop, whatever it took. If she’d had her magic on Earth, she wouldn’t have hesitated to drive her stepfather out of the family. It wouldn’t have mattered to her if some people thought she’d overreacted. All that mattered was putting an end to the abuse.
But I wouldn’t go any further, she told herself. Would I?
“Welcome back,” Professor Armstrong said. “I trust you remember my warning from last year?”
Emily nodded. She liked Professor Armstrong, more than she cared to admit. He was a towering man, with long red hair and a long red beard that hung down to his chest. His face was scarred and pockmarked, his hands were large enough to make her feel uncomfortable, yet there was an odd gentleness about the way he moved that reassured her. She didn’t blame him in the slightest for warning his students that lateness would not be tolerated. He had too much material to cover in too little time.
“I want you to sort yourselves out into groups of three,” Professor Armstrong added. “Make sure you pick a pair of partners you can work with. You’ll be doing a lot of work with them over the next few months.”
“Emily,” Cabiria said. “Over here?”
Emily hesitated, then hurried over to join Cabiria and the Gorgon. She’d worked with Caleb last year, but she didn’t think she could do it again, not even when there would be a third person in the group. There would be too much drama. She didn’t think they had to do another group project, but there was no point in taking chances. Besides, she got along with Cabiria and the Gorgon. Most of the other students didn’t like them that much.
“Very good.” Professor Armstrong waved a hand at the blackboard. It filled, rapidly, with a complicated spell diagram. “In the previous year, we looked at establishing anchored wards against external threats, with a particular concentration on protecting your house and your private rooms. I trust you took the opportunity to practice over the summer?”
Emily nodded. Lady Barb and Sergeant Miles had forced her to practice time and time again, then talked her through the basics of ward-etiquette. Putting up a temporary ward to protect your bedroom was fine—even if you were sleeping in another person’s home—but establishing a permanent ward was far less acceptable. Emily had puzzled over it until she’d realized that a permanent ward would interfere with her host’s wards, perhaps weakening them from the inside. She wouldn’t care to get the blame for someone breaking into a house and wrecking the place.
“My parents were very proud of me,” Cabiria muttered. “But they refused to test my wards.”
“This year, we will split our attention,” Professor Armstrong informed them. “First, we will be studying nestled wards, how you can place one ward seamlessly inside another to expand its function; second, we will be looking at wards designed to monitor the interior of your houses and—if necessary—react badly to misbehavior. Those of you interested in a career in wardcrafting might want to pay very close attention. We’ll only be touching on the basics, but you need to master the basics before you go onwards.”
Emily exchanged glances with the Gorgon. Neither of them were likely to study wardcrafting in detail, let alone seek a wardcrafter apprenticeship, but it was better to construct your own wards rather than rely on someone else. Besides, she had too many secrets to conceal. Lady Barb had given her a whole series of practical lessons in ward maintenance, but she was uneasily aware she probably couldn’t ward a whole house from scratch. It was something she’d need to master before too long.
“I have given you several warnings before.” Professor Armstrong’s eyes swept the room. “This one, perhaps, is one of the more important warnings. We will be using blood, later in the year, to anchor and personalize your wards. I expect you to remember the rules for handling blood and follow them to the letter. Anyone who doesn’t recall them should brush up on them before the end of the week. Carelessness in handling your own blood tends to find its own punishment.”
“How true,” Cabiria muttered.
Emily nodded. She’d learnt that lesson five years ago. She took extreme care with her own blood, even when she cut her finger. It wasn’t paranoia, either. A skilled mage who obtained—somehow—a sample of her blood could use it against her, easily. If Shadye could do it, she had no doubt another magician could do it too. She would have preferred not to use blood magic at all, if it could be avoided.
But a ward that isn’t tied to me won’t be so effective, she thought, glumly. I won’t be as attuned to it as I need to be.
She pushed the thought out of her mind and started to take notes as Professor Armstrong launched into a long and complicated lecture. As always, he took complex subjects and broke them down into bite-sized chunks—giving her time to parse out each and every segment—before demonstrating how they went together. Emily knew, from bitter experience, that turning theory into practical reality wouldn’t be easy, but it was still important to understand the theory behind the nestled wards. She’d crafted anti-magic wards before, even overpowered them, yet her work had been crude. A skilled magician might have been able to overwhelm them.
“You’ll notice that the lower section of spellwork here”—Professor Armstrong pointed to a complex set of spell notations—“defines the lower level of magic. Magic below that level simply doesn’t activate the spell. Why might that be so?”
Caleb stuck up a hand. “Because you’d start draining personal wards if you didn’t set a lower limit,” he said. “You might even drain a magician’s reserves.”
“Correct,” Professor Armstrong said. “Outside a prison, it is very rare to see wards designed to drain a magician completely. Even in a prison, it is generally considered preferable to use potions to keep a magician from using magic. Why? There is a very real risk, if you do, that you’ll accidentally kill your captive. The disadvantages of that should be obvious.”
“Depends on the captive,” Cirroc said.
“Anyone dangerous enough to warrant that level of security would be executed out of hand or stripped of his magic,” Professor Armstrong said. “There would be no great advantage in keeping him alive.”
He glanced at the blackboard. “The spellwork here”—he tapped the diagram—“is designed to react to active spellwork. When the ward senses the magic, it automatically starts to redirect and absorb the spellwork. It doesn’t try to break up the spellwork because the results of that can be dangerously unpredictable. It also doesn’t try to absorb all the magic because ...?”