“Emily,” Professor Armstrong said. He eyed her as she rose. “What can I do for you?”
“I have to set up a dueling club, then run a contest,” Emily said. She cursed the whole concept under her breath. A day of schooling and she already felt overworked. “I was wondering if I could ask you for help setting up the arena.”
Professor Armstrong gave her a sharp look. “Are you asking me to set it up for you or to teach you how to set it up?”
“To teach me,” Emily said. She would have liked to pass the job to someone else, but she doubted anyone would volunteer to do it for her. “And also to make sure it’s safe.”
“Dueling is not safe,” Professor Armstrong said. “You should know that, young lady.”
Emily nodded, remembering when Master Grey had burned to ash ... when she’d burned Master Grey to ash. The stench had haunted her for weeks afterwards, lingering in her nostrils no matter how many showers or baths she took. Even the training duels at Mountaintop had not been safe. There was no way to make them safe without twisting the whole concept beyond repair.
“I would be honored to help you.” Professor Armstrong smiled. “It will serve as a practical lesson, perhaps. There are students who could benefit from such instruction.”
“Me included,” Emily said. She could always use the practice. Besides, she’d been taught to go back to the basics every time she didn’t understand something. “But I don’t want to risk lives.”
“I won’t let a mistake get past me,” Professor Armstrong said. “But I will make you pay for any errors that might be life-threatening.”
“I have no doubt of it,” Emily said.
Professor Armstrong gave her a droll smile. “I should be free on Saturday. We can do it then.”
Emily winced. She’d made plans to go to Dragon’s Den with Frieda. But those plans would have to be changed. There was no way Professor Armstrong would change his timetable for her. Head Girl or not, she was still a student. She couldn’t make demands of her professors.
“That should be fine,” she said. The volunteers would have to be alerted, of course. She’d tell them over lunch. “What time?”
“I think an early start would be good,” Professor Armstrong said. “After breakfast?”
They’re going to hate me, Emily thought. But they did volunteer to assist.
“That should be fine,” she said, again. “And thank you.”
“Thank me with some hard work,” Professor Armstrong said. “I want you to pass your exams. That glitch in your last set of papers could have killed you.”
“I know,” Emily said.
“Luckily, you made up for it,” Professor Armstrong added. “You might not be able to do that again.”
He smiled. “Go for lunch,” he said. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Emily nodded and left.
Chapter Thirteen
IT FELT ODD, EMILY DECIDED, TO share lunch with Cabiria and the Gorgon, rather than Caleb or Frieda. She wasn’t sure why that was the case—she’d shared lunch with Alassa and Imaiqah all the time—but it was. Perhaps it was the fact that they had clearly opened their friendship to include her—three outcast girls instead of two—or perhaps it was the fact that they both talked more about their studies than anything else. But she couldn’t help feeling grateful to them too. It was a sign, perhaps, that she wasn’t completely isolated from her peers.
Just most of them, she thought, glancing along the table. Maybe I should have talked more to the others before Alassa and Imaiqah left.
She shook her head in annoyance, dismissing the thought. There was no point in crying over spilt milk. The students had developed friendships and study groups since they started at Whitehall and there was no room for an interloper. She was lucky that Cabiria and the Gorgon had decided to invite her to sit with them. Her eyes swept the room, picking out students she knew. Most of the Sixth Years were chatting away in their little groups—she spotted Caleb sitting next to Cirroc and Mathis—and clearly trying to recover from the first day back at school. The only person missing was Melissa, who might have decided to go to the library instead of eating. Emily hoped she’d have enough sense to make sure she didn’t go hungry. There was a great deal of practical magic in healing.
The bell rang as she sipped her juice, reminding her that she was meant to be on her way to Soul Magic. She put the glass down and took a moment to center herself—her memories of soul magic weren’t good—and then bid Cabiria and the Gorgon farewell. They waved her off, then returned to their conversation with nary a break. Emily couldn’t help feeling oddly isolated as she walked through the door and out into the corridor. She was alone in a crowd of students.
And being Head Girl doesn’t help, she thought, as younger students scurried to get out of her way. They all think of me as one of the tutors.
She sighed, inwardly, as a cluster of Second Years ran around the corner ... and practically screeched to a halt when they saw her. They’d been playing freeze tag in the corridors, Emily noted, as she pretended not to see them. It was a fun game, for younger students. She wondered, absently, if she should have tried to introduce a formalized version of freeze tag as a project, rather than dueling. It wouldn’t have been that hard to come up with a list of rules and plan a contest. God knew three-fourths of the student body had played it over the last few years.
A couple of female students scattered, leaving behind a third frozen into an embarrassing position. Emily rolled her eyes and silently cast the counterspell, shaking her head in amusement as the young girl squeaked and ran as if the devil himself was after her. Did she expect punishment for being frozen? She’d hardly be the first person to be frozen in Whitehall. Or did she expect Emily to be a bitchy upper-class student? It wasn’t common for senior students to socialize with their juniors.
She watched the younger student vanish down the corridor, then slowly climbed the stairs towards the upper levels. The wards hummed around her, growing stronger as she reached the healing section. It was unusual for anyone to enter, Emily recalled, without a long-term plan to become a healer, even though there were few prospective candidates. The requirements were just too demanding. Even if they failed the exams, they’d still be bound by the oaths. It would make it hard—very hard—for them to take up another career.