Emily sighed. “What’s the problem? What’s the real problem?”
“I don’t understand it.” Frieda stamped her foot on the floor, suddenly looking younger. Much younger. “Everything he says. I don’t understand it!”
“Celadon,” Emily realized. The frustration in her friend’s tone was striking. “Is he not trying to explain things to you?”
“He says he’s trying.” Frieda started to pace, one hand playing with the bracelet on her wrist. “But I don’t understand!”
She spun around, her plaits dancing through the air. “I don’t understand and we’re running out of time and ...”
Emily forced herself to think. Frieda and Celadon would be required to make a presentation to the staff, either during or after half-term. If Frieda really didn’t understand what she was talking about, it would become obvious very quickly. Was Celadon deliberately sabotaging his own project? That would be insane. He’d lose marks too ... at best, he’d scrape through the year. And at worst, he’d be denied the chance to repeat the year.
She held up a hand. “Tell you what,” she said. “Half-term is in two weeks. I should have some free time over the holidays. We’ll sit down together and go through the project together. If I can’t make head or tails of it, we’ll go to your supervisor and request that you be assigned a new partner.”
Frieda shot her a worshipful look. “That would be great!”
“Maybe,” Emily said, dryly. Professor Lombardi would not be pleased. There was a fine line between assisting and doing the work and she had a feeling she might be about to cross it. “But you can’t go around assaulting younger students.”
“They deserved it,” Frieda said. “Emily, they said ...”
“It doesn’t matter what they said,” Emily told her, knowing that Frieda wouldn’t understand. She’d grown up in a society where insults had to be punished. “I don’t want you to hex them anymore.”
“Oh.” Frieda looked down. Her voice was suddenly very quiet. “Are you going to punish me?”
Emily hesitated. “No,” she said. Frieda was going through a bad patch. And Jacqui knew Frieda had been hexing younger students. “But you should probably keep that to yourself.”
“I’ll scream every time I sit down,” Frieda promised.
“I think that might be overdoing it,” Emily said. “Just try to look a little subdued.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“IT’S BEEN AN INTERESTING SIX WEEKS.” Gordian sipped his Kava, thoughtfully. “Would you not agree?”
Emily kept her face expressionless. Gordian had summoned her two days after the incident with Frieda, inviting her to his private chambers and offering her a drink. She supposed that meant she wasn’t in trouble, although she had no idea what it did mean. Gordian could hardly be blind to the rumors flowing around the school. He might choose to consider them beneath his dignity, but he’d still be aware of them.
Aloha didn’t have these problems, Emily thought, resentfully. The badge on her chest felt heavy. She wondered, tiredly, just how bad it would be if she resigned. Cirroc was clever, handsome and popular. She was sure he’d be chosen in her place. If I’d known I was going to be elected ...
“Yes,” she said, finally. “I’ve been very busy with my studies.”
Gordian nodded, slowly. “And running the dueling club and everything else a Head Girl has to do. I trust you’ve been finding it an interesting insight into life as a tutor?”
Emily tried, hard, not to show any reaction. “Do tutors have to do everything?”
“No,” Gordian said. “But they do have to mark essays as well as patrol the corridors, supervise detentions and whatever other duties I see fit to assign.”
He leaned back in his chair, lifting his head until he was peering down his nose at her. “Which leads neatly to another point,” he added, dryly. “Why didn’t you punish Frieda for bullying younger students?”
Emily blinked in surprise. She hadn’t expected that question. “I told her off,” she said, carefully. She wondered, suddenly, if Jacqui had tattled on her. Or if Gordian had been monitoring Frieda for reasons of his own. Or ... maybe she was just being paranoid. But someone had started a smear campaign against her. Gordian might be trying to keep an eye on Emily as well as her closest friends. “I believed that was enough punishment.”
“I’m sure Frieda was scared straight by your telling-off,” Gordian said, his tone as dry as dust. “You have an obligation to punish students for breaking the rules. Tell me ... would you have told off another student? Or would you have sent them to the Warden? Or administered the punishment yourself?”
“I believe I would have handled the matter as I saw fit,” Emily said. She had to fight to keep her hands from shaking. She’d stumbled into ... something. “I don’t believe there’s a single way to handle all such incidents.”
“And yet you sent a trio of bullies to face the Warden only a few short weeks ago,” Gordian said. His voice suddenly hardened. “Whitehall’s rules work, Lady Emily, because they are enforced evenly. We do not pretend to care if someone comes from the very highest levels in society or if they were born in a pigsty. We treat them all equally. Frieda’s crime was far worse than those idiotic firsties, yet you saw fit to give her a lesser punishment. Why?”
Emily gritted her teeth as she tried to think of an answer. The hell of it, she suspected, was that there wasn’t a good answer. Frieda had been guilty of a serious offense. There was no way around it. And Emily had barely done anything about it. Gordian was right. Her telling off—which had been nowhere near as unpleasant as the lectures Emily had endured from Lady Barb or Sergeant Miles—wasn’t a real punishment.
“I believed that other factors were involved,” she said. “I ...”
“And none of those factors matter,” Gordian said, flatly. “What matters is that you saw fit to let her get away with it.”
“I didn’t,” Emily said.
Gordian snorted. “A matter of opinion. And everyone’s opinion is that you showed favor to your friend.”
Emily felt her temper begin to crack. “What would you have done?”
“I would have sent her to the Warden,” Gordian said. “And if I had felt unprepared to handle it, I would have turned the matter over to a tutor.”
“No tutor showed up,” Emily said, icily. She told herself, firmly, to keep her temper under control. “Where were they?”
“Outside, mostly.” Gordian cocked his head. “You’re making excuses for your failure, Lady Emily.”
Emily forced herself to stare back at him, as evenly as she could. Was she about to be dismissed from her post? It would be something of a relief. She wouldn’t mourn the office, not when it came with duties she was ill-prepared to handle. Cirroc or Melissa or someone who actually wanted the job could have it. She could finish her studies and graduate in peace.
Gordian reached into a desk drawer and produced a large scroll. “Have you ever seen one of these before?”