“Thanks,” the boy said.
Emily watched him go, suddenly feeling very tired. Had she done the right thing? She knew the boy—it struck her that she hadn’t even asked his name—was not going to have an easy time of it. But there was no choice. She couldn’t protect him indefinitely, even if she’d wanted yet another responsibility. What would he do when she left Whitehall?
At least he has a chance, she told herself. A person couldn’t rise in the world if they were born on a farm, not if they wanted to stay on the farm. Running off to the city was about the only escape valve the peasants had. And he might become something great.
She rubbed her forehead as she walked down the corridor. It was possible that someone would complain about how she’d handled the situation. Older students weren’t supposed to intervene while the younger students sorted out the pecking order. It was even possible that she would be punished for meddling. But she’d never liked bullies. Sooner or later, the dickheads would try their games on someone powerful enough to make them pay a very high price for stupidity. Better they learnt to be careful now than later.
And it might make them better people, she told herself. Who knows?
She felt the vial in her pocket as she reached her office door and paused. The sign-up sheet for the dueling club was already filled, with more names written on the stone below. It looked as though over a hundred students were interested in joining, mostly from second or third year. Frieda’s name was right at the top.
So much for having a small club, she thought. She should have known better. Casper had wanted to win the champion title, after all. He’d risked his life to win. But at least it will teach some of them how to defend themselves.
Sure, her own thoughts added. And it will teach others how to pick on the weak.
Chapter Fifteen
THERE HAD BEEN A TIME, EMILY acknowledged ruefully, when the weekend had been a genuine chance to rest. She could spend her free time in the library, if she wished, or leave the school for an afternoon. Dragon’s Den wasn’t that interesting a place to go, now that she was used to it, but it was something different. And there was always the prospect of going walking in the mountains, weather permitting. Only a complete idiot would go walking in the mountains when a thunderstorm turned the paths into muddy swamps.
Now, as far as she could tell, there wasn’t any chance to rest at all. When she wasn’t in class, she was in her office; when she wasn’t in her office, she was desperately trying to keep up with her homework or catch some sleep while she had a chance. Three days of schooling had left her feeling like a nervous wreck, praying for the weekend as she forced herself to push onwards and do her duty. But the weekend offered no respite. She had to work on the dueling club.
She couldn’t help feeling a flicker of resentment as she walked out of the school and headed around the arena. It was a bright, sunny day, the sort of day she should have spent walking the mountains or swimming, but instead she had to work. Gordian—for better or worse—hadn’t wanted her to disassemble the ken arena and replace it with a dueling circle. Instead, she—and Professor Armstrong—would have to set an arena up from scratch.
Which will at least give me some more practical experience, she thought. Professor Armstrong had invited the other Fifth and Sixth Years to help too. And it won’t be a complete loss.
The field near the arena was normally used for sunbathing and weekend barbeques when it wasn’t being used for practical exercises. It was nothing more than a grassy lawn, regularly maintained by students in detention. Now, Professor Anderson had started to lay wardstones in a neat circle, carefully outlining precisely how the spells had to go together for maximum safety. The handful of students who’d managed to beat Emily to the lawn were taking detailed notes. Professor Armstrong had hinted that the exercise might turn out to be very useful when exam season rolled around again.
Emily shivered, despite the warmth, as she saw the circle slowly taking shape. The last time she’d seen a full-scale warding circle, she’d faced Master Grey in a fight to the death. It still chilled her to think how close she’d come to death, how easy it would have been for him to kill her if she hadn’t caught him by surprise ... she gritted her teeth as she rounded the circle, careful not to cross the line. The wardstones weren’t charged—yet—but she knew better than to develop bad habits. A person who stepped across a charged line might be hurt or trapped if they weren’t careful.
“Emily,” Professor Armstrong said. He held out a sheet of parchment, covered in spell notation. “I trust this meets with the Head Girl’s approval?”
Emily took the parchment and worked her way through it, carefully. Head Girl or not, she was still subordinate to the tutors. Professor Armstrong would not be pleased if she took him for granted, let alone spoke to him as if he were a servant. Besides, this was an exercise, as far as he was concerned. There would be a glitch, somewhere in the diagram. And she had to find it before they tried to implement it.
“There isn’t enough of a safety ward here,” she pointed out, finally. “And I don’t see how the two wards here and here”—she tapped a lower section—“interact.”
“Poorly.” Professor Armstrong gave her a droll smile. “Are there any other points of interest?”
Emily worked her way through the diagram again, but found nothing. It was true that the flaws in some spellwork only became apparent when the spell was actually tried, yet there shouldn’t be anything too complex about a warding circle. The theory was simple, even if the implementation was tricky. And there shouldn’t be anything about the grassy lawn that would throw all their calculations out of sync.
“You’re drawing power from the nexus point,” she said, finally. “Is that wise?”
“We use something similar for the arena,” Professor Armstrong said, jabbing a finger back towards the giant structure. “This one actually draws on much less power.”
Emily frowned, making a mental note to check the outer edge of the school’s wardstones before she returned to Heart’s Eye. Someone—perhaps Whitehall and Bernard, but more likely someone history had forgotten—had added wardstones to the edge of the school grounds, giving Whitehall’s masters an astonishing degree of control over the whole area. It made her wonder what else had been forgotten over the years—or what might have been deliberately lost. Whitehall’s founding wasn’t the only era that was poorly recorded, for all sorts of reasons. Something had happened during the fall of the Empire that had been wiped from all records, at least the ones she’d been able to read.