“THE FOUR OF YOU SHOULD KNOW better than to hurl dangerous hexes around,” Madame Beauregard thundered, as Emily stepped into the dorms. For an awful moment, she thought it was Frieda getting told off again. “You’re certainly not supposed to set the common room on fire!”
Emily peeped into Madame Beauregard’s office. Four students, all boys, were cringing under the weight of her rebuke. She wondered, absently, what had happened to the housefather, then dismissed the thought as she made her way to Frieda’s room. The housemother would be more than equal to the problem. She’d never seen anyone defy any of the housemothers twice.
She stopped outside Frieda’s door and braced herself. Frieda hadn’t looked happy when she’d left Gordian’s office, which meant ... Emily wished, suddenly, that she’d been there. She would have known what Gordian had said, even though her presence would probably have made Frieda feel worse. Shaking her head, she raised her hand and rapped on the door, firmly. The door swung open a moment later.
The tension hung in the air like a physical presence. Frieda sat cross-legged on her bed, while her two roommates eyed her nervously. Emily could sense dozens of wards floating in the air, brushing against each other to the point where she suspected it was actually counterproductive. She couldn’t help wondering why Madame Beauregard hadn’t intervened. There were so many spells in the room that they might be interfering with the school’s wards.
“Emily,” Frieda said, dully.
Emily looked at Frieda’s roommates. “Go to the library for an hour.” She felt a twinge of guilt at ordering them out of their room, but she wanted—she needed—to talk to Frieda in informal surroundings. “You can come back afterwards.”
The roommates didn’t hesitate. That, more than anything else, worried Emily. Something had gone badly wrong, so badly wrong they’d wanted an excuse to leave. And yet, retreating from their bedroom would have been a sign of weakness. Emily’s arrival—and her orders—had cut through that particular dilemma.
“I’m going to sit on your bed,” Emily said, once they were alone. “Drop the wards.”
Frieda looked up at her, then waved her hand in a limp gesture. The wards faded into nothingness, allowing Emily to step up to the bed and sit down. Frieda shifted, bringing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. Her plaits fell down, making her look ten years younger. It struck Emily, suddenly, that Frieda looked thin again. Had she even been eating?
On impulse, Emily reached out and pulled Frieda into a hug. The younger girl didn’t move, even when Emily held her tightly. Her body felt limp against Emily’s arms, as if she didn’t have the strength to move. Emily held her for a long moment, remembering the days she’d told Frieda stories before they went to bed. Had she done the right thing, after all, by bringing Frieda out of Mountaintop? Or should she have tried to do something else?
She would have died, if you hadn’t been there, Emily reminded herself. And if she had lived, things might not have been better.
Emily pushed the thought aside. “I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “I wish ...”
She tried, desperately, to think of the right words. Lady Barb would have told Frieda off, she was sure. She would have lectured Frieda in her quiet manner that was somehow far worse than shouting, pointed out all of her mistakes in a way that would have left her feeling about a millimeter high. But Emily couldn’t do that. Frieda was her friend and her little sister—in all but blood—wrapped into one. She could no more scream and shout at Frieda than she could beat her bloody.
And yet, she had to say something.
She wanted to demand answers, to know precisely what Frieda had been thinking. And yet, she knew demanding answers wouldn’t help. Gordian had probably demanded answers, hammering away at Frieda until she was a nervous wreck. Frieda had probably been forced to relive the whole incident over and over, every detail etched on her mind ... Emily knew she couldn’t do that, not to her friend.
“It isn’t good,” she said, holding Frieda gently. The younger girl felt so small and slight in her arms. Frieda had always been small, even though she’d been putting on weight. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to pass the exams.”
“He wants to be rid of me.” Frieda sounded as if she wanted to cry, but didn’t dare show weakness. Emily understood, more than she cared to admit. She’d never wanted to show weakness either. “I ... I don’t know what happened.”
Emily frowned. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Frieda shook her head, but started to talk anyway. “I got angry. She was buzzing around me, tossing hexes at me ... I got angry. I was ... I don’t understand it. And then the creepers caught hold of me and ... I saw Dayan.”
“Dayan?” The name meant nothing to her. It was masculine, she thought, but it was hard to be entirely sure. Gender-neutral names were unusual on the Nameless World. “Who was he? She?”
“He was in my class, back at Mountaintop ... before I met you,” Frieda said. “They gave me a basic class in reading and writing before they assigned me to you. Dayan ... thought it would be funny to tie me up and dump me in a cupboard. I was there for hours before someone found and untied me.”
Emily winced. “I’m sorry.”
“I saw him,” Frieda said. “And I panicked.”
“And your magic blasted the threat,” Emily said. “You nearly killed her.”
“I thought I had killed her,” Frieda said. “The Grandmaster didn’t say.”
Leaving Frieda with the guilt of thinking she’d killed someone, Emily thought. And a fellow student, no less.
She loosened her grip. “I should have barred you from the contest. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Frieda slowly uncurled, brushing her plaits out of her face. “I’m going to fail, aren’t I?”
There was a wash of bitter resentment in her voice, mingled with naked shame and self-loathing. Emily felt a stab of pity and reached out to take Frieda’s hand, holding it gently. A dozen possible answers washed across her mind, most entirely useless. There was no point in lying to her. Frieda could do the maths as well as she could. Being even a single week behind the rest of the class might make it impossible to catch up.
“That remains to be seen,” Emily said. She sucked in her breath as Frieda looked at her, dark eyes shining with sudden hope. “You will have to catch up with some of your classes.”
She made a face. Perhaps Cirroc would help tutor Frieda in other subjects. He’d probably want some other form of payment, but he could do it. Unless Gordian decided to be a pain and forbid Frieda from receiving any kind of tutoring. Emily made a mental note to do everything in her power to make sure he never found out, then pushed the thought aside. She had too many other problems at the moment.
“All right,” she said. “What do you want to be when you leave Whitehall?”