She sighed. “I don’t know what to do!”
Caleb glared at her. “Put her over your knee or bend her over your desk and thrash her to within an inch of her life,” he snapped. “Give her essays to write. Make her clean toilets for detentions. Force her to write lines or pick poisonous fruits or something else unpleasant enough to make it clear that she’s being punished! Because if you don’t stop her, what happens next?”
Emily swallowed. “She’ll be expelled.”
“Or Mother will seek revenge.” Caleb levitated his sister’s body into the air and directed it down the corridor. “She’ll expect you to do something, Emily. So will I.”
He walked off, floating Marian ahead of him. Emily clenched her fists as he walked away, fighting down a tidal wave of anger that threatened to overwhelm her. She wasn’t even sure who she was angry at. Frieda, for assaulting Marian? Caleb, for putting the problem in such brutal terms? Or herself, for doing nothing until it was too late. And yet, she couldn’t have kept Frieda with her, could she? There was no way Frieda could have gone straight into Third Year when she arrived at Whitehall.
She took a deep breath, then forced herself to turn and walk towards her office. Frieda would have gone there, wouldn’t she? She had to know the consequences would be far worse if she had been caught by someone else. Unless ... the possibilities ran ‘round and ‘round in Emily’s mind, dragging at her feet as she hurried up the stairs. She didn’t want to reach her office, or walk inside, or confront Frieda ...
You walked into Heart’s Eye, knowing there was a necromancer waiting for you, she told herself. Why is it so hard to confront a friend?
She sighed, inwardly. She’d thought she’d understood why inter-year friendships were discouraged at Whitehall, but she hadn’t. Not until now. She was Head Girl, yet there was no way she could be dispassionate when dealing with Frieda’s problems. Anyone else, she could offer advice from her lofty perch; with Frieda, all of her objectivity went right out the window. Frieda was more than a new bug, more than an irritating younger student to be ignored ...
If someone else had assaulted a younger student like that, her conscience pointed out, you’d have demanded their expulsion.
She reached the door to her office and stopped. The wards confirmed that someone was inside, waiting for her. Frieda? Emily braced herself, fighting down an urge to run, to find someone else who could handle the situation, then pushed the door open. Frieda stood by the desk, one hand playing with the bracelet on her wrist. Emily allowed herself a tiny moment of relief—at least Frieda had gone to the office, instead of running—and then closed the door, slamming the most powerful privacy wards she could muster into place. No one, not even Gordian, would be able to eavesdrop.
But I’ll have to tell him something, she thought. That assault won’t go unnoticed.
She clasped her hands behind her back as she studied Frieda. The younger girl gazed back at her defiantly, her face somehow different. She’d changed, Emily reflected; she’d become a little harder, a little more determined to blaze her own path through the world. Her pigtails no longer looked girlish, somehow; her arms were strongly muscled, stronger perhaps than Emily herself. And her magic was ever-present, buzzing just below her wards.
“Frieda,” Emily said. Her mouth was suddenly dry. It was all she could do to keep her anger out of her voice. “What happened?”
Frieda’s face didn’t change. “We were playing tag. She started to talk about you and me and ... and stuff. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Emily said, tartly. “What sort of stuff?”
“She was saying that you and I were having a relationship,” Frieda said. “And that you broke up with Caleb because of me and ... she just went on and on until I silenced her.”
“Until you nearly killed her,” Emily said. Marian had been bleeding. There could be internal injuries ... or it could have been a force punch. Or a physical blow. Magicians rarely settled their disputes through brute force. A punch in the face would have surprised Marian more than a whole series of hexes. “She’s a kid!”
Frieda snorted. “She’s old enough to marry, old enough to bear children, old enough ...”
“She’s a firstie,” Emily said. She felt her temper rise. “What were you thinking? Or were you thinking at all?”
“I was thinking that I could silence her,” Frieda snapped. “I’m not stupid!”
“You could be expelled for this,” Emily said. It was hard to keep her voice level. “You attacked a firstie. What sort of excuse do you have?”
“What sort of petty excuse did Jade have for knocking you on your ass when you were a firstie?” Frieda countered. “He did, did he not?”
Emily blinked. Jade—or Alassa—must have told Frieda that, back in Zangaria. “We were in Martial Magic,” she said. Jade had been a good sparring partner, even though she was ruefully aware she’d never come close to matching him. “What’s your excuse?”
“She deserved it.” Frieda crossed her arms under her breasts. “I’m not sorry.”
“You should be,” Emily said. She forced herself to unclasp her hands. “Frieda, you could have killed her!”
“I didn’t,” Frieda said.
Emily felt her temper snap. “You assaulted a student who didn’t have a hope of standing up to you,” she snarled. That would have been true even if Marian hadn’t been recovering from trauma. Emily had studied hard, but she’d never been able to match Jade or Cat in Martial Magic. “What the hell do you think excuses that?”
“She was lying about us, about you,” Frieda snapped back. “She had to be silenced!”
And so you set out to silence her, Emily thought.
She groaned. She’d never liked the honor culture of the Nameless World, although she had to admit that she might have avoided Master Grey’s trap if she’d been more aware of the pitfalls. A person who shot his mouth off could be challenged, he could be silenced by force ... freedom of speech wasn’t even a concept on the Nameless World. And a man who didn’t challenge his detractors to put up or shut up would be seen as a weakling.
And that goes for magicians too, Emily thought. It was bitterly ironic. Mundane women were expected to ignore slurs against their persons—and mundane men were expected to ignore them—but female magicians were expected to defend their own honor. The one community on the Nameless World where sexual equality was actually a thing and it still managed to bite her on the behind. Frieda thought she was doing the right thing.
“You shouldn’t let this happen,” Frieda said. “Why don’t you find whoever is spreading these rumors and silence him?”