Emily took the vial and eyed it, warily. It was unmarked. “What is this?”
“A strong sleeping draught,” Samra said. “Make sure your wards are up. You don’t want to be awoken ahead of time.”
I have to eat dinner, Emily thought. And yet, she didn’t want to eat dinner. Sleep sounded very attractive, all of a sudden. She could sleep, then cook something on her own stove ... even slip down to the kitchens. She was Head Girl. She could even ask the cooks to send something to her room, if she wished. I ...
“Thank you.” She rubbed her forehead, wishing the pain would go away. “When ... when do we meet again?”
“Thursday, I think,” Samra said. “Come to my office after your last class. The sooner you master the basics, the better. You’ll have to work hard to catch up with the others.”
Emily groaned. “Does it get easier as we go along?”
“I’d say it gets different,” Samra said. “Soul Magic is never easy.”
She nodded to the door. “I’ll see you later. Goodbye.”
Emily took the hint and headed to the door, pocketing the vial as she walked through the outer classroom. Melissa and a dark-skinned girl Emily didn’t recognize were sitting at the table, working through a large medical textbook. Emily couldn’t help feeling a moment of respect for Melissa, if she’d been studying soul magics as well as healing. She was clearly stronger than Emily realized.
She’s always been very sure of herself, Emily thought. Melissa had possessed the nerve to defy her entire family, including her fearsome grandmother. Emily wasn’t sure she’d have been able to do that, if she’d fallen in love with someone the family considered unsuitable. And she’s taken on one hell of a challenge.
Melissa looked up. “Did you have a good first lesson?”
“It could have been better,” Emily said. Her lips twitched. She supposed it could have been worse. “How did you cope?”
“It’s like push-ups,” Melissa said. “The more you do them, the easier they get.”
Emily had to smile as she walked through the door and down the stairs. Sergeant Harkin had been horrified, utterly horrified, when she’d started Martial Magic and he’d seen how few push-ups she’d been able to do. She’d been forced to do more and more until her arms were aching, but she had to admit that it had gotten easier—slowly. Aloha hadn’t been too pleased either, even though she’d been starting out too. Emily had made her look bad.
Which wasn’t entirely my fault, Emily thought. I didn’t ask to be put in that class.
She was nearly at the dorm level when she felt the school’s wards pulse in alarm. She tensed, reaching out with her senses to touch the wards. Someone was using magic further down the corridor, someone was using magic that brushed against the unspoken limits. She hesitated, wondering if she could direct someone else to deal with the problem, then cursed under her breath as she realized no one else was within range. There certainly didn’t seem to be any tutors nearby.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stride down the corridor. Someone was jeering—and others were laughing—ahead of her. There was a cruelty in the tone that told her what she would see, even before she rounded the corner. A young boy—a firstie—was hanging from the ceiling, his eyes wide with terror. Three other boys stood under him, pointing and laughing. A girl leaned against the far wall, looking as if she wanted to run, but she was too scared to take that first step. Emily realized, to her shock, that it was Marian.
She cleared her throat. “What do you think you are doing?”
The boys—the bullies—turned to look at her. They were firsties too, but they were clearly not unused to magic. Emily had no difficulty, now, in picking out the signs that they’d been raised in magical families. If nothing else, they’d managed levitation and sticking charms in their first week of formal schooling.
Their eyes went wide when they saw her, their bodies shuffling as if they were unsure whether they wanted to challenge her or run for their lives. Emily glared at them, fighting to keep her anger under control. She’d seen too many bullies in her life, people with the wealth, power and social capital to convince authority figures to overlook their transgressions. Even in Whitehall, where one could hardly wave a wand without hitting someone with powerful connections, the popular bullies could get away with almost anything ...
Not now, she thought. She hadn’t wanted to be Head Girl, but if they gave her the power she was going to use it. Not with me.
The leader took a half-step forward. Emily met his eyes, silently daring him to defy her. He was handsome enough, she supposed; he was too handsome to be entirely natural. His black hair framed a face that was utterly unmarked by life. It was bad manners to check if someone was using a glamour, but she could sense faint traces of magic covering his face. He hadn’t applied the glamour properly.
“We were just showing the new bug how important it is to master his magic.” He sounded as though he was trying to seem assured, as if it had never crossed his mind that there might be something wrong with his conduct, but he didn’t have the presence to pull it off. “Being stuck to the ceiling will ...”
“Injure him quite badly if the spell fails and he can’t catch himself in time,” Emily finished, sharply. Falling three meters to a hard stone floor would result in broken bones, at the very least. “And can you be sure you can catch him before he falls?”
“New bugs have to learn,” one of the other firsties said. He wore a face that was surprisingly adult. Emily tried to sense a glamour, but felt nothing. Either he was a far superior magician or that was his real face. Emily didn’t know which prospect was more disconcerting. “My father told me ...”
“You’re a new bug,” Emily pointed out, sharply. “And your father isn’t here.”
“We have a duty,” the first bully said. “And ...”
Emily forced herself to tamp down on her anger. “No, you don’t,” she said. “Go see the Warden, all three of you. And afterwards, you might want to reflect on just what would have happened if he had fallen to the floor.”
The firsties looked rebellious. “Are you not going to beat us yourself?”
Emily flared her magic. “Would you rather I stuck you to the ceiling and left you there until you fell?”
She felt a flicker of heavy satisfaction as they stumbled backwards in shock. Flaring one’s magic was raw intimidation, nothing else. Firsties—even ones who’d had some training before coming to Whitehall—couldn’t have hoped to match her power. She could have taken all three of them with one hand tied behind her back and they knew it. Perhaps they didn’t think much of her appearance. She knew she didn’t have the presence of Aloha, let alone Lady Barb. But they’d respect her power.