“No,” Emily said.
She looked down at the floor, feeling guilty. She’d been told what she’d had to do, but nothing she’d been told had come close to the truth. Perhaps there was no way to prepare her for soul magic, save by experimenting under controlled conditions. Nothing Samra could have said would have conveyed the true intensity of the experience. Her words might just have made Emily a little complacent. That would have been disastrous.
“I don’t want to do this again,” she said.
Samra slapped her hand against the chair. “You don’t have a choice,” she snarled. Her sudden anger made Emily recoil in shock. “You’ve been given these classes, over my strong objections, even though you refused to take the oaths! You don’t get to withdraw now you’ve discovered that it isn’t as easy as it looks!”
Melissa touched Emily’s arm. “It’s alright,” she said. “I really don’t mind.”
Madness, Emily thought.
“You’ll be back here in two days for our next session,” Samra said, firmly. “And I shall expect a much better performance.”
She rose. “Pull yourself together, then get out,” she ordered. “Melissa, see me in an hour. I need to discuss your research paper with you.”
Melissa winced. “Yes, Mistress.”
Emily wilted. Her bones suddenly seemed to be made of jelly. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, quietly. “I ...”
“I knew what I was agreeing to.” Melissa made a face. “Just wait until you try to touch minds with a boy.”
“I don’t want to,” Emily said. She knew she sounded petulant, but she didn’t really care. “I saw too much of you ...”
“You’ll see worse,” Melissa said. “They had me on walkabout during the hols, Emily. I saw ... I saw nightmares.”
Emily believed her. She’d seen all sorts of unpleasant sights on her walkabout. Men who’d been injured, but unable to afford medical attention; women and children who’d been beaten or abused by their husbands or parents, yet unable to run. A genuine healer-in-training would probably see worse. No, there was no probably about it. She touched the bracelet on her wrist, remembering the horrors Mother Holly had unleashed. Maybe Melissa hadn’t encountered a necromancer. She would still have seen far too much of man’s inhumanity to man.
“Thank you,” she said. She knew she should be grateful. It just felt far too much like having someone thank her for hurting them. “What ... what was that ceremony I saw?”
Melissa frowned. She didn’t seem to wonder which ceremony. “Didn’t your mother ever arrange one for you?”
Emily shook her head, wordlessly.
“It was the moment I became a woman.” Melissa smiled, ruefully. “My mother and the other women held a ceremony, welcoming me to womanhood. I was no longer a child, but a young woman of House Ashworth. I was seated at the adult table and ...”
Her face darkened. “Fulvia wasn’t pleased, I think. She should have been delighted, but she wasn’t. She was brooding all through the ceremony she was supposed to lead. I never understood why.”
Emily frowned. She didn’t pretend to understand how the complex ties of blood and magic bound magical families together—or what had happened to allow House Ashfall to break off from House Ashworth—but she thought she understood some of the implications. Melissa’s rise to womanhood meant that she was in line to inherit the family—or she had been, before she’d been disowned. Given time, Melissa might have challenged Fulvia’s control. Perhaps that was why Fulvia had sought to marry her off as soon as possible.
And then dispose of Melissa, once she produced an heir, Emily thought. Gaius had betrayed the Allied Lands. She had no doubt he would have betrayed Melissa too. Fulvia’s position would be secure.
“Just be glad she’s out of your life,” Emily said. It was unlikely Melissa and Fulvia would cross paths again, now that Melissa had been disowned. “Have you heard anything about her?”
“No one talks to me, these days.” Melissa looked wistful, just for a second. “I don’t hear much from home. The last I heard, the witch had vanished. Maybe she dropped dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Too much to hope for, Emily thought. Fulvia was old, but she was also powerful. She certainly had enough magic to rejuvenate herself, if she wished. A change in face, a change in name ... it wasn’t as if Fulvia would have any trouble earning money, if she didn’t have something stashed away for a rainy day. Someone like that wouldn’t die so easily.
Melissa rose. “I would suggest, if I were a healer, that you use the mirror again before you leave. If not ... well, most of my memories should fade from your mind fairly quickly, before they really take root. The handful that remain shouldn’t stand up to examination. You weren’t making love to Markus and you know it.”
Emily covered her face. “I’m sorry ...”
“A couple of years ago, I would have been utterly humiliated,” Melissa said. “Now ... well, I understood what I was agreeing to when I volunteered. And ... well, I have been inside other minds too, when I was being trained. You’ll see others too.”
She winked. “Just remember not to pry too much. Some memories are very disconcerting.”
“They’re all disconcerting,” Emily said.
“You and I have a lot in common,” Melissa said, briskly. She winked. “Wait until you try to read someone who has something different between his legs.”
Emily flushed, helplessly.
Chapter Twenty
“MY FAMILY WROTE TO ME TO ask if the rumors were true,” Cabiria said. “I assured them that you were not in the habit of using dark magic.”
“Thank you,” Emily said. She’d been reluctant to accept Cabiria and the Gorgon’s offer of a study date in the library, but she had to admit it was a welcome change. The study room was private, yet roomy enough to allow all three of them to work without getting in each other’s way. She looked at the Gorgon. “Did you hear any rumors?”
“My people do not pay attention to rumors,” the Gorgon said, primly. Her snakes hissed in unison. “And nor should yours.”
“My people do pay attention to rumors.” Cabiria shot Emily a reassuring look. “But I like to think that my family listened to me.”
Emily sighed. She’d heard too much over the last few days. Rumors spreading through the school, passed from student to student with no discernible origin point. She’d even confiscated a handful of printed pamphlets that made a whole series of unsubstantiated and thoroughly unpleasant allegations concerning her and her friends. One had outright accused her of plotting to declare herself the empress of mankind. No one with any common sense should have believed them, but most of the charges were maddeningly difficult to disprove.