“A combat sorceress,” Frieda said. “You know, like Lady Barb.”
“Yeah,” Emily said. She took a second to compose her thoughts. “You will need Alchemy, Charms, Healing and Martial Magic, at the very least. You’ll need advanced classes in all four subjects if you want to go straight into an apprenticeship after leaving school. That means you have to take them all in Fifth and Sixth Years.”
“As well as others,” Frieda said.
Emily nodded. “You can drop the other classes now,” she said. She understood Frieda’s reluctance to give up, but she’d really bitten off far more than she could chew. Aloha was the only student Emily recalled with a similar workload and Aloha had learned to read, write and study from a very early age. “I know you want to keep them, but you don’t have time.”
“I can’t drop the joint project,” Frieda pointed out.
“No, you can’t,” Emily agreed. She gritted her teeth. Celadon and Frieda would just have to put up with each other for a few more months. Then they could submit their project and settle their differences on the dueling field, if they wished. “You need to drop all of the other classes now.”
“I’ll lose marks,” Frieda protested.
“You’ll lose everything if your combined marks aren’t enough to push you into the next year,” Emily pointed out, a little more sharply than she’d intended. Frieda cringed, as if Emily had slapped her. “You can’t handle so many classes, not now. Drop them and concentrate on what you need.”
Which might not be enough. Emily thought. Her behavior will not make the tutors eager to see her next year.
She forced herself to think. It wasn’t unheard of for a student to go into an apprenticeship after Fourth Year, but it was very rare. Frieda certainly wouldn’t be offered the chance to apprentice with a combat sorcerer, unless ... Emily considered a handful of possible options, one by one. Sergeant Miles would flatly refuse to take Frieda, she suspected, along with most of his peers. But Jade might ... he was a master, authorized to take students if he wished. And he owed Emily a favor.
Alassa might be glad to have another combat sorcerer—even a half-trained one—nearby, Emily told herself. And Jade certainly doesn’t have time to raise a conventional apprentice.
“You need to pass those four subjects,” she said. “Everything else, you can study during the holidays and take the exams before classes resume.”
“Like you,” Frieda said. “What happens if I fail?”
Emily shrugged. There were options. Frieda wouldn’t have any qualifications, but there were places so desperate for magical help that they probably wouldn’t care. Or she could find a private tutor if she got kicked out of Whitehall. Or ...
“Concentrate on not failing,” she said, firmly. She untangled herself from Frieda. “How many hexes have you placed around your desk?”
“They kept trying to break in.” Frieda waved a hand towards the desk. “I wanted to keep them out.”
Emily sighed. It sounded as though Frieda needed new roommates too. She wasn’t sure what she could do about that. Students weren’t supposed to change rooms without a very good reason. Perhaps she could talk the housemother into authorizing a change, if Frieda found someone willing to swap with her. But the way she’d been behaving recently, Emily doubted she would have any takers.
She used to get on with her classmates, she thought. Frieda had always been more sociable than Emily. She was the one who invented freeze tag! What happened?
There was a small notebook on the desk, sitting next to Frieda’s class schedule. Emily saw it and winced. Frieda had hardly any time outside classes at all. That wasn’t going to be a problem for the next few weeks, she reflected as she listed the classes Frieda would have to drop. She understood wanting to learn as much as possible, but there were limits. Frieda had clearly met hers quite some time ago.
“Write a formal note to the year head, informing him that you intend to drop all but those four classes,” she said. She picked up the notepad and held it out to Frieda. “And then I’ll take it down to his office.”
“You shouldn’t do that for me,” Frieda said.
Emily shrugged. Gordian was on the warpath. There was no point in giving him an excuse, no matter how thin, to turn Frieda’s suspension into an expulsion. Frieda would be better off staying in her room anyway, at least until dinnertime. Adana’s friends were likely to hex Frieda in the back if they saw her. They might be two years younger than Frieda, but if they were angry enough they were unlikely to care.
“I’ll take it,” Emily said. Frieda didn’t need to get into trouble for hexing younger students again. “You can start working on your study plan.”
Frieda blanched. “Study plan?”
“Yes.” Emily reached for the bookshelf, then stopped herself. “Remove the wards?”
Frieda scowled, but did as she was told.
“There’s a course outline in your year handbook,” Emily said. She’d studied hers religiously, once upon a time. “You can see what the tutors are teaching over the next three to four weeks. Your task is to work out what you need to study to catch up with the minimum of trouble.”
“I won’t be able to do any practical work,” Frieda objected.
“That might not be a problem,” Emily said. Gordian had agreed that Frieda could use a spellchamber. He’d meant for the joint project, but Emily figured she could stretch his rules a little. Besides, she could alter the wards to keep him from peeking. “For the moment, though, you need to concentrate on theoretical work.”
She passed Frieda the handbook, then sat on the bed. “You won’t get another chance,” she warned. “You cannot afford to let this one slip by.”
Frieda looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry. I just ... I just don’t know what happened.”
Emily frowned. She’d checked Frieda’s room—and Frieda herself—for outside influence, finding nothing. Frieda hadn’t been enspelled, nor was she being drugged or manipulated by magic. And that meant ... what? That Frieda was acting of her own free will? Or that someone had managed to manipulate her without magic? Emily honestly wasn’t sure which possibility was more disturbing.
She really did take on too much, she thought. Even Aloha had become cranky, as exam season approached. She’d once turned Emily and Imaiqah into tiny statues, just for talking too loudly when Aloha had been trying to study. And Frieda might be cracking under the strain.
“It doesn’t matter,” she lied. It wouldn’t be long before Adana’s parents heard what had happened. And then ... what? There was no way to predict their reaction. Thankfully, Gordian would have trouble issuing more punishment—or handing Frieda over to Adana’s parents—without an additional excuse. “What matters now is coming to grips with the problem.”
She leaned against Frieda, wrapping her arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “You can cope with this,” she said, as reassuringly as she could. She tapped the notebook, meaningfully. “Start writing the note now.”