Original Work Grandmaster (A Schooled in Magic Universe Novel)

Chapter Eighteen

Alan waited until William of Glister was asleep, then crept out of the bedroom and inched his way down towards the exit. It was after midnight, when the prefects should be safely back in their own rooms and the night staff thinking more about their own beds than catching students out after Lights Out. Being out this later was risky in more ways than one, even if he didn’t get caught, but there was little alternative. The Grandmaster might overlook Walter and his friends sneaking out of the castle and down to Dragon’s Den; he wouldn’t offer the same latitude to Irene or any other students, unless they were very well connected too. And Alan knew very well that only a handful of students were anything like as important as Walter.

Cold anger simmered in his breast as he stepped through the hatch and made his way to the spellchambers. The lower levels were almost eerily quiet, as if someone were waiting for something to happen. Alan stayed to the shadows, relying on a night-vision spell instead of risking any sort of lightglobe. He’d never been out so late and he wasn't quite sure what to expect, but he was fairly certain the lower levels would be deserted. The tutors slept in a very different part of the school.

The book was where he’d left it, concealed in an old storage cupboard. It had been tricky to get his hands on the tome and harder still to find a place to hide it that wouldn’t be discovered quite by accident. Whitehall was huge, with dozens of disused classrooms and dorms, but it wasn’t uncommon for some chambers to be opened, cleaned, and put back into service without warning, raising the spectre of the book being discovered and taken straight to the Grandmaster. Alan wasn’t sure what would happen then, but he doubted it would be pleasant. It wouldn’t be easy to explain anything about the affair.

He shuddered as his fingers touched the book’s cover, an unpleasantly sensation running up his arm and chilling his body, then picked it up and carried it into the spellchamber. It was supposed to be set aside for older students, although it was rarely used because there were spellchambers nearer the dorms and few older students had any qualms about booting younger students out so they could take their place. He muttered a spell to raise the lights, then a second to give him some semblance of privacy. If nothing else, Walter and his cronies had taught him how to cast quite a few advanced privacy wards. Their habit of constantly spying on them had provided all the impetus he needed.

The book felt wrong as he sat down and opened the tome. The text was spidery, seemingly designed to be hard to decipher even for someone who’d been taught to read and write from birth. It was tricky to work out the instructions for curses nastier than any he'd leant at school, let alone ritual designed to increase one’s magical power; Alan would have left the book firmly alone, Master Hasdrubal’s warnings ringing in his ears, if he hadn’t been so desperate. It was just a matter of time before Walter tried to kill him. And do worse to Irene.

I won’t let that happen, he told himself. I won’t.

He mumbled to himself as he parsed out the words, one by one. The writer had used paragraphs where words would do, sometimes ducking and dodging around the point he was trying to make; he’d sometimes linked separate spells together, making it difficult to untangle them into something he could actually cast. Irene would be better at figuring out the book, Alan knew, but their relationship had been rocky over the last few days and besides, he didn’t want her to get any of the book’s malice on her. She had a future. He didn’t. leaving her out of the affair would be his last gift to her.

“Indulge me,” a voice said. “Just who are you planning to kill?”

Alan jumped, almost dropping the book as he stumbled to his feet. Master Hasdrubal was behind him, close enough to see what he was doing and yet not close enough to … Alan cut off that thought before it could go any further. The idea of assaulting a tutor was bad enough under any circumstances, but if the rumours were true Master Hasdrubal had been a combat sorcerer and a specialist in dangerous magics before coming to Whitehall and taking up the post of charms master. and besides, he had tried to deal with Walter. It wasn’t his fault that Boscha had overruled him.

“I …” Alan swallowed hard and started again. “No one.”

Master Hasdrubal held out a hand. Alan hesitated, then held out the book. Master Hasdrubal took it and studied the cover for a long moment, his eyes lingering on the faded text Alan had never been able to decipher. Alan stepped backwards, trying to think of a way out of the mess before it was too late. Nothing came to mind. He’d been caught messing with dangerous, if not forbidden, magics and that was grounds for expulsion, if the tutors were feeling merciful. It wasn’t as if anyone would go to bat for him.

“This tome is known as Malice, with reason,” Master Hasdrubal said. He sounded as if he were discussing the weather, not a book of eldritch horrors and dark magics. “The basic spells are designed to lure the caster into a series of increasingly evil and corrupting acts, eventually turning them into a monster beyond compare. You would tell yourself, time and time again, that you are going to stop, only to discover that you needed to take another step, and another, until your time ran out. Very few can get on the dark path and then off again. Who were you planning to kill?”

Alan flushed. “No one,” he said. “I just …”

“You would have had to kill someone, once you started down the dark path,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Premeditated murder, perhaps of someone very close to you. Would you have cut Irene’s throat with a stone knife to give yourself an unfair advantage?”

Alan clenched his fists. “I wouldn’t!”

“You can tell yourself that now, and perhaps you mean it,” Master Hasdrubal said. “But your resolve would weaken, as you plunged into the service of unspeakable evils. Why did you bring the book here?”

“I …” Alan lowered his gaze. “I wanted to practice …”

“Why?” Master Hasdrubal’s eyes bored into his. “Why now?”

Alan sagged. “You know what Walter did to me,” he said. It was hard to speak dispassionately when his rear still bore the scars, when Irene and he had barely exchanged more than a handful of words with Irene over the last few days. “I wanted power.”

“Many do,” Master Hasdrubal said.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Alan snapped. He had nothing to lose. He might as well show his bitterness. “You grew up in a noble household. You had a silver spoon rammed up your arse from day one. How could you understand what it’s like to be me?”

“You might be surprised,” Master Hasdrubal said. “My brothers and I were born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

“So what?” Alan glowered. “You had education and training and everything you needed. I had nothing. No father, no mother, just endless work … while everyone else had everything they needed to be great. How could you understand?”

“I believe I do,” Master Hasdrubal said. His tone never changed. “You are angry and resentful and bitter, dark emotions carrying you down a very dark path. You are alone and hurting and seeking hope, even if the hope comes from a very dark and dangerous book. You have no faith in anyone else to protect you, nor do you have any respect for rules that are routinely ignored by your enemies, and so you have determined to risk everything on one final throw of the dice.”

“Is that wrong?”

“Your feelings are valid,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Your actions are not.”

Alan made a choking sound. It was the first time anyone had suggested he had a right to feel anger and resentment. And yet …

“Walter is going to kill me,” he said. His last flickers of pride died as he spoke. “Why shouldn’t I get him first?”

“For one thing, using the magics in this book will bring the wrath of the world down on you,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Where did you find it, anyway?”

“It was tucked away in the library,” Alan said. “I was looking for something that could help me and I found that book …”

“The author wove a bunch of charms into the tome,” Master Hasdrubal said. “One to make the book difficult to see, unless the seeker was someone who might be tempted to open the book and put the spells to use. You were looking for something that could give you an edge, which blinded you to the dangers of messing with dark magics.”

“So I was manipulated into picking up the book,” Alan said, desperately. “The Grandmaster bought Walter’s cock and bull story …”

Master Hasdrubal smiled. “I doubt that explanation would convince him,” he said. “He’s heard a great many students pleading their homework ate the dog and had to be put down”- his lips twisted – “and unfortunately it happened too late for the homework to be done a second time. Disaster.”

“Yes, sir,” Alan said. He felt his legs begin to buckle and sat down before he collapsed. He was doomed. He was going to be expelled and marched out of the school and … maybe they’d just hang him. He’d seen a public hanging once, as a young boy, and the convict had died poorly … he was going to die. Walter would probably whine to his father and Alan would be executed … and it had all been his fault. “I …”

He braced himself. “What now?”

“Your feelings are valid,” Master Hasdrubal repeated. “Your reactions are not. You could easily have killed Walter if you’d gone ahead …”

“Good,” Alan said, stubbornly. “The world would be a better place without him.”

Master Hasdrubal shot him a reproving look. “On one hand, I should report this to the Grandmaster and let him deal with you,” he continued. “On the other, the Grandmaster is a very busy man these days and I’m sure he’d be delighted if I dealt with you myself. You haven’t actually cast any of the spells, have you?”

“No,” Alan admitted. “I only found the book three days ago.”

“Good,” Master Hasdrubal said. “In that case, I’ll let you off with a warning.”

Alan was instantly suspicious. He was no one. There was no powerful relative or patron who could fight on his behalf, no one who could offer a reward for giving him a slap on the wrist. Master Hasdrubal had no reason to go out on a limb for him, unless … no. There was no suggestion he was one of the tutors who took advantage of their students, something rare in a school of magic. It wasn’t as if he had anything to offer in return.

“This is the warning,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Dark magic feeds on negative feelings. Your resentment and anger is used to power dark spells, which will plunge you further into a morass of madness until you snap, or kill yourself, or someone puts you out of your misery. You will never be truly happy, if you rely on dark spells; the brief highs of crushing your enemies will be followed by long lows, as you fall back into misery and are forced to climb back out of the pit again and again. You would become an addict, constantly seeking the next high. It would destroy you.”

Alan swallowed. “But what other hope do I have?”

“You are a capable young man,” Master Hasdrubal said. “You’re smart and flexible, capable of making a name for yourself …”

“Not if Walter has anything to say about it,” Alan muttered. “He’ll block anything I do.”

“I doubt Walter will care one jot about you after you graduate,” Master Hasdrubal said. “He’ll be a busy young man.”

“No one will take me on, if it means picking a fight with Walter,” Alan said. “I’ll be lucky if I get a place in a spellhouse, not an apprenticeship.”

“I have some contracts,” Master Hasdrubal said. “If you do well in your final exams, I’ll put you in touch with them.”

“They won’t take me,” Alan said.

“They’ll take whoever I tell them to take.” Master Hasdrubal’s voice was suddenly very firm. His words were absurd and yet Alan believed him. “You’ll have a fair chance, at least.”

“Fair,” Alan repeated. “The world isn’t fair.”

“No,” Master Hasdrubal agreed. “But it can be pushed into being a little less unfair. If we try.”

He met Alan’s eyes. “And I suggest you make up with Irene.”

“She hates me now,” Alan said. “I …”

“I doubt it,” Master Hasdrubal said. “She’s smart enough to realise you were both hurting.”

“She could have been raped,” Alan protested. “She was assaulted. She … why? Why did he get away with it?”

“The Grandmaster has his reasons,” Master Hasdrubal said. He sounded like a man who knew he was defending the undefendable. “And I am sure they make sense to him.”

“Sure,” Alan muttered. He discarded the last lingering traces of his pride. “Can you keep it from happening again?”

“We will try,” Master Hasdrubal said. He sounded tired, all of a sudden. Tired and frustrated. “Now, did you listen to my warning?”

Alan flushed. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Now, I believe you should be in bed. Go. I’ll take care of the book and shutting everything down here, don’t discuss this with anyone if you can avoid it. And don’t let me catch you doing something so stupid again.”

“Yes, sir,” Alan muttered. Bitter resentment spilled into his tone. “He gets to go out every night and I …”

“He certainly shouldn’t be,” Master Hasdrubal said, coolly. He pointed at the door. “Now, go to bed. I’ll see you in class tomorrow and you had better be well-rested.”

Alan hesitated, then fled. Master Hasdrubal had done him a colossal favour and he knew it … and yet, it was hard not to feel he’d been robbed of a chance to really hit back at Walter before it was too late. Master Hasdrubal’s mercy had spared him expulsion or execution, but … Alan didn’t really want to think about it. And yet …

He swallowed, hard. He’d have to talk to Irene and then … he didn’t know. There seemed to be no way out of the trap …

And, sooner or later. Walter was going to do him in.

***

Hasdrubal watched Alan go, then looked down at the book. It really was very well camouflaged, the charms woven into the leather – human skin, if he was any judge – making it hard to see unless one was already touched by the darkness. Countless librarians had probably moved it from shelf to shelf, without ever quite seeing what they were touching. Malice was an old textbook, easily predating the Empire itself. It was quite possible it had been waiting for centuries before Alan had stumbled across it, hidden in the shadows. And now it was doomed.

And it didn’t manage to get its hooks into Alan, Hasdrubal mused. Alan had been luckier than he knew. Malice was no ordinary grimoire. There weren’t many copies left, all with bloodstained histories. That’s worth giving him a second chance, I think.

He shut down the lights, then walked back to the student dorms. Alan was already well ahead of him, no doubt rushing back to his room before he could be caught by a roving patroller. Hasdrubal followed at a steady pace, keeping his thoughts under tight control as he stepped into the dorms and made his way towards Walter’s chambers. Even here, it was hard to escape aristocratic privilege. Walter and Adrian had been given a chamber easily large enough for five or six, not two. Hasdrubal paused outside, then carefully reached out with his mind to query the wards around the suite. They were more complex than he’d expected, which was interesting, but one thing was clear. The room was empty. Walter and Adrian were nowhere to be found.

Interesting, Hasdrubal mused. There was little point in holding a midnight feast after midnight, but where else could the boys have gone? Sure, they probably bragged of sneaking down to the town, yet that was unlikely unless they had help … could Boscha favour them that much? It seemed unlikely and yet … Hasdrubal couldn’t think of anything better. It would be difficult for students to leave the castle without setting off alarms, unless someone cleared them through the wards. There’s nowhere else to go?

His eyes narrowed as he checked a handful of other bedrooms. Seven students were missing … they couldn’t all be favoured by Boscha, could they? Hasdrubal wondered if he should sound the alarm, but there was no sign of a struggle, nothing to suggest the boys – and they were all boys – had left against their will. And that meant … he heard someone entering the corridor and hastily cloaked himself in shadow, stepping back into hiding as Walter led the way back to the bedrooms, the rest of the missing following him. They looked tired, but happy. No hint of bruises, nothing to worry him. But they shouldn’t have been out of bed at all.

And that means I need to be here tomorrow night, he told himself, as he slipped away through the shadows. If they’re leaving with Boscha’s permission, that means …

He didn’t know. But he knew he needed to find out.

 

Chapter Nineteen

It felt odd to be lurking in the shadows outside the dorms, Hasdrubal reflected the following night, but there was little choice. Walter had been oddly tired and disciplined throughout his lessons, contenting himself with a handful of snide remarks aimed at Alan and Irene instead of outright bullying; Adrian, more wild and less inclined to consider the long-term consequences of his actions, had been surprisingly passive throughout the class. Hasdrubal didn’t like the implications, although he couldn’t put his feelings into words. Walter’s smirk suggested he knew something the rest of the class did not.

And being here could easily get me in trouble, if the wrong person finds out, Hasdrubal mused, as the Lights Out bell rang. Technically, he had the right to go anywhere within the school; practically, there were limits. Better to find out what’s happening quickly before anyone stumbles across me.

Patience didn’t come easy to him, as the last of the students made their way into the dorm before they were caught, but he forced himself to wait anyway. Whatever was going on couldn’t be happening too late, or Walter and his cronies would have looked like death warmed over in class instead of only mildly tired. It suggested they couldn’t have been going too far from the school … he froze, cutting off that line of thought, as Jacky stepped out of the door and looked around before summoning the others to join him. There was no conversation as Walter stepped past Jacky and led the way through the school, moving with a swagger that suggested he knew he was untouchable. Hasdrubal brought up the rear, hiding behind his cloaking spell, as they reached the lower levels and stopped outside a statue of the Dark Lady, the sole woman amongst the Whitehall Coven and someone a number of historians believed had never existed at all. Walter tapped the statue’s left breast, then stepped aside as the statue rotated to reveal a secret passageway. Hasdrubal cursed under his breath. He’d found many secret passageways during his time at school, but he’d missed that one. He wondered, sourly, just how many more waited to be discovered.

Walter made no sound as he led the way into the passageway, the rest of the gang following him into the darkness. Hasdrubal remained at the rear, barely squeaking through as the statue rotated back into place. Jacky giggled and Walter snapped at him to shut up, even though it was unlikely anyone could hear them so far underground. The tunnel went down, levelled out for quite some distance, then rose up again, the hatch at the far end already opening to reveal a very familiar corridor. Hasdrubal cursed under his breath. The secret passageway led directly to Blackhall.

He’d half-expected the young men to head to the doors and out into the forest, but instead they made their way to the training chamber. Boscha was standing there waiting for them, wearing a simple training robe that made him look like a man who had to be taken seriously, flanked by two other men in combat sorcerer robes. Hasdrubal sucked in his breath as he remained in the shadows, watching as the young men lined up in front of their master. There were more than he'd expected, he realised numbly. Fifty-seven students, all very well-connected; all men. That was odd. If Boscha wanted to recruit well-connected students, why reject half the potential candidates because of their gender?

“You know what to do,” Boscha said. He sounded crisp, direct … so unlike the Grandmaster Hasdrubal knew and loathed that he was tempted to hit Boscha with a spell to check his identity. But Hasdrubal didn’t dare move. He’d never thought of Boscha as particularly talented, but it was growing alarmingly clear he’d underestimated the older man. “Begin.”

Hasdrubal watched, coldly, as the students did as they were told, running through a series of magical combat exercises that put the ones his family had offered to shame. Hasdrubal felt his heart sink further with every passing second as they cast spells on each other, ranging from simple offensive spells to others that were tricky, almost forbidden. He’d wondered where Walter had learnt the spell he’d used on Alan … he knew now. Boscha walked from student to student, offering advice to some and a mild rebuke to others, praising the deserving in a manner that would have impressed Hasdrubal if it hadn’t been so … slanted. They weren’t being praised for doing well. They were being praised for living up to their bloodlines.

He’s a Supremacist, Hasdrubal thought, numbly. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised. The idea that magicians were just better than commoners had been around for a long time, that magic instantly elevated the poorest and lowliest amongst magicians to a nobility none of the mundane aristocracy could hope to match. He might have been more taken with it himself, if he hadn’t been so aware of how his brothers had been treated. Boscha is a Supremacist and he’s teaching them to be Supremacists too.

Hasdrubal swallowed, hard. Boscha was pushing at an open door. Walter and his cronies—and the rest of the group—were already convinced of their own superiority. Hasdrubal knew how they treated the mundane servants—and newborn magicians, even though they had magic too. It was easy to be cruel, if one believed the cruelty was amply justified … he wondered, suddenly, if Boscha had given Walter instructions on what excuse to use, if they were caught by the other tutors. Or … he cursed inwardly. It was easy to manipulate simple minds. All you had to do was pretend to be their friend, and excuse their misdeeds, and they’d love you.

And they know he’s not a weakling either, Hasdrubal mused, as he watched the lesson go on. There’s no sense he’s giving them what they want because he’s afraid of them.

His head spun as the sheer magnitude of what he was seeing dawned on him. Boscha wasn’t just teaching them how to fight. He was teaching them to work as a team, to think their way through tactical obstacles … he was building an army! His blood ran cold as he inched back, careful not to do anything that might risk discovery. Hasdrubal wasn’t afraid of the students … no, that wasn’t true. Not any longer. Fifteen magicians with combat training, even incomplete, could give him a very hard time. And Boscha himself …

In these times, fifty-odd magicians would make a formidable force, Hasdrubal thought. He kept moving, back down the stairs and into the tunnel. And who’s to say there aren’t more?

The thought nagged at his mind. There were two thousand students in Whitehall. Two-thirds of them, more or less, had bloodlines that stretched back at least three or four generations, perhaps more if you overlooked certain … irregularities … in the records that might suggest a combination of forgery and wishful thinking. Even if Boscha restricted himself to the older students, and Hasdrubal hoped Boscha would, he might still be able to put together a formidable force … enough to do real damage out in the world. The Empire was gone. There was no one else who could oppose him. And if Boscha took power …

Hasdrubal shuddered. He didn’t want to think about it.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he returned to Whitehall, although he doubted he was truly safe. Boscha controlled the wards … he hoped, prayed, that Boscha hadn’t been watching him as he left the school. Would Boscha have worked out where he’d gone? Or … his thoughts spun in circles, trying to come up with a plan. Should he go to what remained of the White Council? Right now, he doubted the councillors could agree on anything, even something as important as putting out a fire threatening to burn them to death. Or his family … the thought of crawling back to House Barca, even to warn them, was abhorrent. They’d laugh in his face. Probably.

I need allies, he told himself, grimly. And that means …

Shaking his head, he hurried back to his suite. He had a meeting to plan.

***


“Very good, Walter,” Boscha said. “Very good indeed.”

Walter smiled, wiping the sweat from his brow. He’d always been taught to fight as an individual, as a duellist, and fighting as part of a team was surprisingly difficult when he’d never been close enough to anyone to trust them to cover his back. Even Adrian was hard to trust, in all honesty. He was a good fighter, but he was unreliable and prone to acting without waiting for orders.

“Thank you, sir,” Walter managed. Boscha passed him a bottle of water without comment. Walter took it and drank it gratefully. “You’re a good teacher.”

Boscha gave an odd little smile, as if he were taking pleasure in the statement for reasons beyond Walter’s understanding. The Grandmaster was the Grandmaster, true, and yet Boscha had never seemed to be anything more than a paper-pushing bureaucrat. To learn he was taking the lead on a long-term plan to secure their patrimony was one thing, to see him as a mighty warrior as well as a spellcaster was quite another. Walter wished he’d seen that side of the Grandmaster from the start. It would have made his schooling so much more interesting.

“Thank you,” Boscha said. “You’re a good student.”

Walter nodded, putting the empty bottle aside. “How long do you think we’ll have to train?”

“Difficult to say,” Boscha said. “Walk with me?”

“Sure.” Walter followed Boscha out the door and down a corridor, into a small yet heavily-warded office. Blackhall was a simple mansion, if one with a long and complex history, and he wasn’t surprised it was more than just a training ground for defensive and martial magic students. “What can I do for you?”

“You named most of our early recruits,” Boscha said, as he sat in a faded armchair and motioned for Walter to sit facing him. “How do you think they’re coping?”

“It’s only been a few days,” Walter said, “but I think they’re doing fine.”

Boscha nodded, slowly. “And yourself?”

Walter hesitated. His lessons had covered more than just combat skills. They’d touched upon leadership, forcing him to push his limits with each and every problem he had to solve before time ran out. Walter had never really considered the difference between positional and personal authority before, never had to think about it when he’d known he’d inherit his father’s role and anyone who disagreed would be tossed out of the family before they managed to do more than annoy him. It was hard to wrap his head around the fact that not everyone would follow him willingly, that there were dozens – perhaps hundreds – of bluebloods who’d think twice if he didn’t convince them he could be trusted. His family name only took him so far …

In a way, that was the hardest lesson of all.

“I've got a long way to go,” he admitted. Being the leader was great, and he looked forward to the day he could impress Irene with his leadership talent, but it was a very real responsibility … and his subordinates had no reason to follow him. It was tricky to remind himself, time and time again, that he couldn’t force them to obey. “I will make it.”

Boscha smiled. “I never doubted it for a moment.”

Walter grinned. It was the dawn of a new era and he was going to be there, right from the start. His family were going to be proud of him, so very proud. He would save them from the warlords, then build up a network of contacts and clients that would leave everyone else in the dust. And then … Boscha couldn’t live forever, could he? Walter would be in the perfect spot to claim the Grandmaster’s titles for his own.

He frowned as a thought struck him. “Why not Stregheria? Or Morgana? Or …”

Boscha leaned forward. “You are aware, of course, that us magicians are grossly outnumbered by the mundanes?”

“Of course,” Walter said. “But what does that have to do with …”

The Grandmaster continued, as if Walter hadn’t spoken. “The vast majority of men are expendable, regardless of their magic or connections. The women are rather less so, because they are the only ones who can give birth. It is vitally important that we preserve and protect as many women as possible, because we need them to breed the next generation of magicians. They can be taught to defend themselves, sure, but not to fight in wars. That’s a male preserve.”

Walter had grown up in a society that practiced arranged marriages. He knew a marriage would be arranged for him, if he didn’t find a suitable girl himself, and … not everyone had even that much freedom. The lesser clansmen would be told to marry the family’s choice or be disowned; no one would care, not really, if the happy couple stayed together or not as long as they had children to carry the family name into the next generation. The idea of making sure the girls remained alive to breed was coldblooded, without any of the appeals to family honour or tradition, and yet … it wasn’t wholly alien. And it made a certain kind of sense.

“Yes, sir,” he said, finally. “They’ll howl if they’re left out, though.”

“We may have to steel ourselves to do things that should never be done,” Boscha said. His gaze was vague, but Walter had the impression Boscha was paying close attention to him. “There was fighting two days ago, as the reivers rear their ugly heads once again.”

Walter frowned. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“It’s not important to magical folk,” Boscha said. “But to the locals …”

“Reivers?” Walter had never heard the term. “Who are they?”

“Bandits, barbarians who were barely kept in line by the Empire,” Boscha said. “They live in borderlands, disputed territories that were never peaceful … they stole cattle, burned towns, carried off young ladies, until the Empire banged heads together and imposed peace. But they never changed their essential nature, which meant the moment they were no longer being held down they went right back to their old ways. And now the border folk are suffering.”

He stared down at his hands. “It’s tragic, really.”

Walter shrugged. His father had always believed magical and mundane folk should remain strictly separated. The former didn’t need anything from the latter and close contact between the two societies was bad for both sides. Walter wasn’t so sure. Irene was a commoner, the first in her family to have magic, and she was far from the only one. Perhaps it would be better to take such children away and raise them properly, rather than leave them at the mercy of their magicless peers. What would Alan have become, Walter asked himself, if he’d been raised by House Ashworth? He would certainly be far more respectful of his betters.

“Yes, sir,” he said, finally.

“Mundanes lack the perception to understand their own weaknesses,” Boscha continued, speaking more to himself than to Walter. “They cannot maintain a society without a strong hand keeping them firmly in place. When that hand is removed, they regress back into barbarism. It is only a matter of time until the border wars explode into more general conflicts, threatening to destroy what little remains of the old order.”

Walter shrugged. Everyone knew mundanes were dirty and smelly, even the ones wealthy enough to live in actual comfort. The whores he’d fucked in Dragon’s Den were supposed to be clean and yet … they’d often stunk, even as they’d rutted in ways utterly alien to the refined aristocratic girls he’d met at countless dances and other social events. It was impossible to imagine any noble born woman doing … no, it was just impossible. The mundanes had their uses, but hardly anything of great importance. They could die out tomorrow and the magical community would be just fine.

“They can breed magicians too,” Boscha added, quietly. “And what’ll happen if they do?”

Walter had no answer. Alan was a bastard in every sense of the word. He couldn’t be trusted. Irene … was better, yet she refused to bow the knee to her betters. And if there were more than a handful of trained common-born magicians …

“It may become necessary to take control and rule over them,” Boscha said, lightly. “For their own good, and ours of course.”

“It might be,” Walter said. It was hard to think clearly. His father wouldn’t approve and yet … the world was changing. He wanted to discuss the matter with his father, but that was impossible. He’d been warned, in no uncertain terms, not to trust the mail or any sort of messaging spells. “Would it not be a waste of our resources? Are they worth conquering and ruling?”

“We can use their resources,” Boscha said. “They can farm for us, mine for us … all for their own good. They will thank us for providing the strong leadership they need and we will be well-compensated for saving them from themselves.”

He smiled. “But that’s sometime in the future,” he added. “Right now, all that matters is building the army.”

“Yes, sir,” Walter said. He felt odd, as if he was slightly dizzy. Were they discussing a very real possibility or something vague, something that would never become reality. “I’d better get back to it.”

“And don’t discuss this with anyone else,” Boscha added. His tone was light; his eyes were hard. “There is much to be done before we step into the light.”

“Yes, sir,” Walter said. He was Boscha’s right hand man, even if no one else knew it. The price of his position was keeping his mouth firmly closed. “I won’t let you down.”

 

Chapter Twenty

Hasdrubal hesitated outside Mistress Constance’s door, then tapped it once.

Her door swung open a moment later, her wards pointedly crackling around him. Mistress Constance had hundreds of suitors, all convinced she’d marry them if they asked nicely. So far, she’d rejected them all. Hasdrubal suspected I knew why.

Mistress Constance emerged from her bedroom, her dark hair hanging loose and spilling over a white nightgown. She eyed Hasdrubal in a manner that would have intimidated him, if he hadn’t seen too many horrors in his life. A sorceress’s rooms were her own private kingdom, and she would be quite within her rights to do whatever she liked to an unwelcome guest, if he intruded without her permission and a very good reason. But she had to know Hasdrubal wouldn’t knock on her door without good cause. Tutors learn to value their private time. They get so little of it.

“This had better be important,” she snapped. “I have the fifth years in the morning.”

“I found out what our grandmaster is doing,” Hasdrubal said, after casting a series of privacy wards. The look she gave him suggested he’d better explain quickly or he’d be spending the rest of his life croaking on a lily pad, if she didn’t chop him up and use him for ingredients instead. “He’s building an army.”

Mistress Constance stared as Hasdrubal ran through the full story, then swallowed. “He’s mad!”

“Perhaps.” Hasdrubal wasn’t so sure. Boscha wouldn’t have embarked on such a scheme unless he was reasonably sure it would succeed. Or at least thought he could back off and swear blind he’d been up to nothing. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing.”

“We had an odd little chat, Pepper and I and him,” Mistress Constance mused. “It was one of those odd little conversations, one of those discussions where you dance around the topic endlessly, trying to tease out what someone thinks about something without ever revealing your own thoughts and feelings. It was … he was talking about magical supremacists, asking what I thought of the concept. I dismissed it.”

Hasdrubal looked up. “You did?”

“It’s easy to say we’re better than the mundanes,” she said. “But the idea magicians who can trace their families back countless years are superior to newborns is absurd. I’ve been a teacher for years, and I have seen no inherent difference, nothing that proves newborns cannot catch up with students who were born and raised in a magical household and were taught much of what they needed to know before they came into their magic. You should have seen it, too.”

Hasdrubal nodded. If it had been up to him, newborns would have been given a year of preparatory schooling before they started classes with students who’d had that training before they went to school. It would have kept them from being left behind, confirming the prejudices against newborn magicians. Boscha had always refused to even consider the possibility. With what Hasdrubal knew now, he suspected he hadn’t wanted to risk giving the newborns a level playing field.

“Yes,” Hasdrubal said, curtly. “What’s his endgame?”

His mind churned. If Boscha was acting alone … he couldn’t be. It would just take one idiot like Walter to say the wrong thing to his parents, and all hell would break loose. Boscha might have tried to get them to swear oaths or sign contracts to keep their mouths shut, but his students had been born and raised in a community where asking someone to swear an oath was a huge red flag. And if Boscha had tried to test Mistress Constance, to see if she might be open to his ideas …

“He’s not the only Supremacist,” Hasdrubal mused. The Supremacists were strongest amongst the magical families, the ones with the background to buy into their claims. Hasdrubal knew there were a few in House Barca, damn them. “If he’s working for the others … what then?”

He thought he saw what Boscha and his allies had in mind. The world was in flux. There was no stability, no legitimacy save what was conferred by force. A magical army could impose a united government on the magical community, through a combination of sticks and carrots, and go on to create a magocracy ruling the entire world. It was rare for magicians to care that much about the mundanes, but … it wasn’t as if any of the magicians ever stuck their necks out for them. Walter and his cronies could do as they pleased and no one—no one important—would care enough to stop them.

“We need to unseat him,” Mistress Constance said. The urgency in her voice gave Hasdrubal pause, before he realised the problem. A Supremacist government with the power to push magicians around would force her to marry and bear children, no matter her personal preferences. “And quickly.”

Hasdrubal nodded. “It won’t be easy,” he said. “He has control of the wards.”

“Call Pepper,” Mistress Constance said. “We need her in on this too.”

“And a few others,” Hasdrubal agreed. “How do we stop him?”

He snapped his fingers, sending a private message to Pepper, then leaned forward. “How long do we have?”

“Unknown,” Mistress Constance said. “But if he’s just getting started, we might be able to nip this scheme in the bud.”

Hasdrubal wasn’t so sure. Boscha could have spent months, or years, planning his scheme. He’d recruited at least two instructors for the army, neither already on the school’s staff … it suggested a degree of planning that was, quite frankly, worrying. The Grandmaster could have spent the summer drawing up his plans, then crafting gaps in the wards to allow his chosen allies to enter and leave without drawing attention. Whitehall was immense, easily large enough to conceal an entire army. Just how many allies did Boscha have, Hasdrubal asked himself grimly, and just how far were they prepared to go in pursuit of their goals?

He was committed the moment he started recruiting amongst the students, Hasdrubal mused, sourly. Word will get out, sooner or later, and not every magical family will be pleased.

Pepper entered, looking tired. “What’s so urgent you had to drag me out of bed?”

“Our esteemed Grandmaster has started building an army,” Mistress Constance said. “And we think it’s only the beginning.”

Hasdrubal took a breath, then ran through the entire story. “He wouldn’t be doing this alone,” he finished, grimly. “If he’s recruited Walter and Adrian, it’s a certain bet he’s got the backing of their houses and … probably more. I saw students from at least five different families in his little gang.”

Pepper stared at him for a long moment. “What’s his endgame?”

Mistress Constance snickered. “Strange minds think alike.”

“Dominance,” Hasdrubal said, ignoring the jibe. “Think about it. The Great Houses don’t really have armies, beyond their guardsmen. They’ve never really needed muscle. The Empire made sure to protect the aristocracy, to ensure they didn’t feel the urge to start building proper armies of their own; they made it clear the warlords would not be allowed to infringe on the magical aristocracy and vice versa. But the Empire is gone. There’s no one standing between the two factions, no one who can stop them from going to war. And if Boscha just happens to have an army …”

“One answerable to the allied families,” Mistress Constance injected.

“… He can crush the warlords and impose a new order on the world,” Hasdrubal finished. “The Supremacists think that magic gives them the right to rule. If the Empire is no longer in a position to stop them, who can?”

He shuddered as the full implications of the nightmare struck him. The magical community was outnumbered a thousand to one by the mundanes – and that was being optimistic; the real disparity was probably a great deal higher – but it hardly mattered, not when one side had magic and the other was limited to swords, spears, bows and arrows. It would be easy for a group of combat magicians to smash an entire army, to summon lightning to vaporise kings and princes; to carry out rituals that would open volcanoes under castles or create earthquakes that would swallow entire cities. There were legends of long-forgotten wars, when half-mad wizards bent the world to their whims; horror stories of places the grass would never grow again, after insane warlocks unleashed dark magics that grew until they consumed everything within reach. The Empire had kept such nightmares under control, devising a social structure that had prevented the magicians from making bids for supreme power while ensuring the warlords couldn’t cause too much trouble, but now the Empire was gone.

And Boscha might be the first one to truly understand what that means, he told himself, as he pulled his mind back from the impending horrors. There’s little in place to stop such a mad scheme now.

“We could take it to the Board,” Pepper suggested, slowly. “Would they listen to us?”

“I doubt it,” Mistress Constance said. “Ashworth and Rawlings are already involved in this mad scheme. They’re not the only ones either. Boscha must have some kind of cover story in place, ready to go … he’d probably say he was giving the scions of the aristocracy some extra training. You know what they’re like.”

Hasdrubal gritted his teeth. The vast majority of aristocratic parents were remorseless when it came to seeking advantage for themselves, and only secondarily for their children. They brought immense pressure to bear on tutors, sometimes trying to ensure their children got extra opportunities and sometimes insisting their kids should have gentler marking. Hasdrubal dreaded to think what would happen if that took off, if tutors were bullied into giving marks the students hadn’t earned. Reality rarely tolerated such hubris for long, he knew from experience, and telling students they were better than they were was asking for trouble. They’d try something they couldn’t handle, because they didn’t know they couldn’t handle it, and by the time they realised their mistake it would be too late. It was just a matter of time until those parents got their children killed.

“Yes,” he grunted. “He might just get away with it.”

Particularly with at least two major families backing him, Hasdrubal added, mentally. The rest might choose not to look too closely, if they think it’s just a case of someone grasping an unfair advantage …

“Write down a complete list of the students you saw training with Boscha,” Mistress Constance said. “See who’s there … and who’s missing.”

Pepper frowned as Hasdrubal started to write. “You think the Supremacists will seek to dominate the magical world as well as the mundanes?”

“Why not?” Mistress Constance shook her head. “They want to reshape the world to suit themselves. Any magical household that refuses to go along with them is going to be a potential threat.”

“And they’ll start building armies of their own too,” Hasdrubal added. “The Supremacists will have a head start, true, but that won’t last long.”

“Perhaps we should be tipping them off,” Pepper said. “Boscha’s army is in its infancy. If we can get other armies put together, before he’s ready to go, we can force him to stand down.”

“And then we have another magical war,” Mistress Constance said, flatly. “His supporters are committed now. They won’t be able to back down without losing everything.”

Hasdrubal couldn’t disagree. House Barca had never allowed him and his brothers to take part in political deliberations within the house, but he was a keen observer and he knew just how vicious internal politics could become. Anyone who managed to get themselves in deep shit, such as having a secret plot exposed before it was too late to do anything about it, would be lucky if they were merely sent into exile. And this plot threatened the entire status quo. Walter’s father was a great deal smarter than Walter himself, and far less prone to rash moves, but if his secret was revealed too early he’d have no choice but to fight. Surrender was simply not an option.

“So what do we do?” Pepper looked from Hasdrubal to Constance and back again. “Kill him?”

“That won’t be easy,” Hasdrubal pointed out. “Boscha is protected by the wards.”

“We might be able to find a way to hack them,” Mistress Constance said. “Or we could try to ambush him outside the school.”

“Except Boscha isn’t the only one involved,” Hasdrubal said. “His death won’t slow his allies for long.”

Depending on just what Boscha told his recruits, his thoughts added, grimly. The secret won’t last past winter term, when most aristo students go home for the holidays …

He smiled, coldly. “Perhaps we’re looking at this from the wrong angle,” he said. “There are other ways to tackle the problem.”

“I hope you’re not going to suggest joining him,” Mistress Constance said. “I doubt there’s any place for us in their world.”

Hasdrubal nodded. He’d been disowned. Mistress Constance hadn’t been quite kicked out of her family, but she’d been told – in no uncertain terms – that she wouldn’t be welcome back until she stopped messing around with alchemy and found a suitable boy. Pepper was the freest of them all, he supposed, yet her unconventional background and lack of creditable patrons meant she wouldn’t have any support if Boscha turned on her. Hasdrubal had wondered, when he’d first met Pepper, if Boscha had ulterior motives for hiring her; in hindsight, he feared he was only partially corrected. The motives existed, but they weren’t what he’d thought. It wasn’t much of an improvement.

“No,” he said. “Tell me if this makes sense.”

He took a breath. “The plan has to be in its infancy,” he said. “Boscha may control the school, and the wards, but he’d still find it hard to keep the plan secret for long. Someone will go home and blab to their parents, this winter, and if their parents aren’t already in on the secret all hell will break loose. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Pepper said. “Although there are ways to keep people from blabbing.”

Hasdrubal nodded. “If I’m right about the first point, then the fifty-sixty names on this list” – he held out the sheet of parchment – “are pretty much all he has at the moment. And their training has only just begun. They’re not an army yet, just a squad.”

“True, perhaps,” Mistress Constance said. “Unless they’re doing the same at the other schools.”

“That’s out of our hands,” Pepper said. “Although I can’t see Laughter going along with this mad plan.”

“Perhaps,” Hasdrubal said. “It seems to me we don’t need to defeat him and his army so much as we need to discredit the whole idea of an army. If we can prove the concept is deeply flawed, Boscha’s backers will pull back and leave him holding the bag.”

“If,” Pepper said. “Problem is, the concept is solid.”

“Right now, that army is a threat because there’s no counterbalancing force,” Hasdrubal pointed out. “Even a relatively small magical army could devastate an entire country, if there was nothing capable of standing in its way. But the moment it reveals its existence, the remainder of the Great Houses will start building their own.”

“So you said,” Pepper pointed out.

Hasdrubal leaned forward. “I propose we build an army of our own,” he said. “A fighting force assembled from the students who stand to lose, if Boscha’s mad plan succeeds. If we have an army of our own, we can block him and his allies and hopefully deter them from doing anything stupid.”

“And they’ll be forced to back down, which they will do by blaming everything on Boscha,” Mistress Constance said. “He’ll be left holding the bag.”

Hasdrubal nodded. Boscha didn’t have a powerful family and … irregularities … in his family tree made it difficult for anyone to support him, certainly not after he outlived his usefulness. It was quite likely the School Board would turn on Boscha, blaming him for the whole embarrassing debacle and stripping him of his post as punishment. It would give the rest of the plotters a chance to cut their losses and back off, without feeling forced into a position where they had to fight or surrender.

“More than that,” he added. “If we recruit our army from common-born students, it’ll be hard for the Supremacists to claim they’re superior when they get their rears kicked by a common-born army. It might discredit them once and for all.”

“And if it does come down to a fight?” Pepper leaned forward. “You know as well as I do that wars are chancy things.”

“Particularly as no one has done anything like this for hundreds of years,” Hasdrubal agreed. “I don’t think they’ll risk outright conflict, as long as they think there’s a reasonable chance they could lose.”

“The Supremacists are not reasonable,” Mistress Constance pointed out.

“Their backers amongst the aristocracy are,” Hasdrubal countered. “They won’t back the Supremacists if they think it’s a losing game.”

“Such loyalty,” Pepper noted, snidely.

Hasdrubal snorted. “You want loyalty in a Great House? Get a dog.”

“Hah.” Pepper snickered. “I can’t think of anything better. Can you?”

Mistress Constance shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Then we will proceed,” Pepper said. She stared down at her hands for a long moment. “Who else do you want to bring in on this?”

Hasdrubal hesitated. “We choose our allies carefully,” he said. “If we ask the wrong person, they’ll go straight to Boscha.”

“Yeah,” Pepper said. “I’ll put together a list and we can discuss it. And our first recruits?”

“I know where to begin,” Hasdrubal said. He felt a twinge of regret at what he was about to do, even though he couldn’t think of any other option. It felt as if he were betraying his tutor’s oath. “And they have excellent reason to join us.”

 

Chapter Twenty-One

Irene couldn’t wait for the week to be over.

It was bad enough that she’d been stripped of her badge, barely a couple of days after she’d gotten it, but worse that every wretched aristo in the school had heard the worst possible version of the story of what had happened to her in the broom closet. Apparently, she’d yielded to Walter’s superior masculinity and performed acts that were only possible in a very depraved mind; the fact she hadn’t done anything of the sort, willing or not, had little bearing on the torments aimed at her over the last few days. She’d been hexed time and time again, barely managing to keep a number of students from raising her robes or turning them transparent, and she was ready to kill. Alan had done what he could to help her, but they were badly outnumbered. They were so alone that no one would come to their aid for fear of being targeted too.

She sat in the charms classroom, silently dreading the walk to the dining hall after classes finally ended for the day. Walter and his cronies seemed to be leaving them alone – oddly, Walter appeared to be focusing on his work – but there was no shortage of others willing to take their place as Alan and Irene’s tormentors. She was seriously considering giving in and leaving the school, even though it would mean letting the bastards win. If they broke her …

“Alan, Irene, stay behind,” Master Hasdrubal said, as the bell rang. “The rest of you, dismissed.”

Irene frowned, mystified. Alan looked puzzled too. Nothing had happened … nothing out of the ordinary … not as far as she knew. Their homework had already been marked and returned to them, covered in everything from praise to stern instructions to reread certain chapters in their textbooks and then redo the assignment from the beginning. They weren’t in trouble and … she gritted her teeth, forcing a smile as Walter stood and led his cronies out of the classroom. The leer he shot in return was oddly disturbing, all the more so because he wasn’t trying to flirt with her. He was up to something. She knew it.

“Come forward,” Master Hasdrubal ordered, once they were alone. Irene sensed a handful of powerful wards slamming into place, too powerful for her peace of mind. “Bring your chairs and sit in front of the desk.”

Irene obeyed, schooling her face into a blank mask. Alan looked a little more perturbed. He’d had some kind of discussion with Master Hasdrubal, a few days ago, but he’d been reluctant to tell her precisely what had happened … she wasn’t sure, in all honesty, that she really wanted to know. It might be something she wouldn’t be able to forget once she heard about it.

“This conversation will be completely off the record,” Master Hasdrubal said. “There is much we need to discuss, then you have a choice to make. Whatever you decide, you are not to share anything of this discussion with anyone else. If you do, the consequences will be unpleasant. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Irene managed. It really didn’t sound like good news. “Alan?”

“I understand,” Alan said, slowly. “Is this something to do with Walter?”

“In a way,” Master Hasdrubal said.

“Freaking aristocrats,” Alan muttered, sullenly. “They always get away with everything.”

Irene winced. She’d seen students caned for speaking to tutors in impolite tones … and Alan was being extremely impolite. Master Hasdrubal had more patience than most, and nothing to prove, but there were limits. He would be perfectly within his rights to bend Alan over the desk and cane him, right in front of her, and … it might push Alan right over the edge. She leaned forward, trying to draw the tutor’s attention to her. Better to take the risk herself than see her friend pushed to breaking point.

“Is this about where they’re going each night?”

“Yes,” Master Hasdrubal said. “That’s part of it.”

“Really,” Alan said. “What are they doing?”

“Private lessons with the Grandmaster,” Master Hasdrubal said. “And a little bit more.”

Irene felt her heart sink. It just wasn’t fair. She worked her ass off to scrape a passing grade, spending hours in the library parsing out books and hours more in the spellchambers trying to make the spells actually work, and … Walter was getting private lessons. She would kill to get private lessons. She and Alan worked well together, but he’d started with even less education than she had and … she blinked hard, battering tears away from her eyes. The fix was in … of course it was in. Everything was fixed and …

“A little bit more.” Alan’s tone was hard. “What do you mean? Sir.”

Master Hasdrubal leaned forward. “They’re learning how to fight,” he said, bluntly. “And they’re going to become the core of a brand new army.”

Irene blinked, unsure what to make of it. “An army?”

Alan muttered a curse under his breath. “An army,” he repeated. “To put us uppity commoners in our place, to be sure.”

Irene winced. Walter was a shithead, but he was the kind of shithead who would be satisfied with a show of submission … the one thing Alan could never give him, no matter how many times he was hexed or battered by the aristocratic knob. Perhaps if she’d convinced Alan to bend the knee, just a little, in first year … she shook her head, disgusted that she could even consider the possibility. The bastard wouldn’t be satisfied with a simple display of submission. His crush on her would drive him to do worse. Far worse.

“Among other things,” Master Hasdrubal said.

Irene muttered a word her mother would have slapped her for knowing. She’d seen more than enough magic, over the past four years, to know the magicians didn’t need an army to put the commoners in their place. She’d visited several towns like Dragon’s Den, where the magicians were the dominant minority, and breathed in the air of fear that overshadowed the mundanes living there even if they outnumbered the magicians. Her father was a strong man, a walking hunk of muscle, but a magician could stop him in his tracks – or worse – with a snap of his fingers. There was no stopping the magicians if they decided they wanted to take over. And Irene had a nasty feeling there were magicians who didn’t count her as a magician …

It’s not a feeling, she told herself, savagely. It’s simple fact.

“And Walter is part of this,” Alan said, more to himself than to anyone else. “Of course he is.”

He leaned forward, his face grim. “And what does this have to do with us?”

“We want to put together an army of our own,” Master Hasdrubal said, his eyes never leaving their faces. “We can teach you how to fight, how to defend yourselves and others … how to work as a group to defeat Walter and his friends before they become a real threat. It can be done – if you are prepared to work for it.”

Alan sneered. “And what’s in it for you?”

Irene wanted to tell him to shut up. But it was already too late.

“This madcap plan has to be stopped before it gets rolling,” Master Hasdrubal said, bluntly. “Does that answer your question?”

“Only partly,” Alan said. “Why can’t you ask for help from your family?”

“My family wouldn’t believe me, if I told them,” Master Hasdrubal said, so evenly Irene knew he was annoyed. “Or worse, they would believe me and start scheming to take advantage of this for themselves. There’ll be little hope of keeping the army from pillaging mundane villages as well as sorcerous communities that refuse to fall in line, as long as the magical community doesn’t take action before it is too late. There’s always someone who manages to think the unthinkable, to have a mental breakthrough that seems all too predictable in hindsight, and this time …”

He shook his head. “There are politics involved, but … suffice it to say we’re on our own.”

“You mean, Walter and his family have already stitched everything up,” Alan said, bitterly. “No one wants to get on their bad side.”

“I believe so,” Master Hasdrubal admitted. “We will be carrying out some … minor … political inquires, to try and figure out who can be trusted, but right now we’re on our own. That’s the trouble with politics – it’s never easy to figure out who’s on what side, who owes fealty to who, who can be trusted to give us a fair hearing and who can be trusted only to blow the whistle on us before it’s too late. If we trust the wrong person too, the results will be disastrous.”

“So start with families known to loathe the Ashworths,” Alan suggested.

“It’s politics,” Master Hasdrubal said, tiredly. “Someone might loathe the Ashworths, for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to oppose the plan. They might think the army is a good idea, or they might assume they can take control of it in some way, or they might simply have been bribed into submission. The stakes are so high we dare not assume the political battlegrounds will shape out in any way we expect. If we make a mistake …”

Alan ground his teeth. “We get the blame, don’t we?”

“I dare say there’ll be enough blame to go around,” Master Hasdrubal told him. “If we get caught before we’re ready … yes, it could end very badly. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to back out now. You won’t be punished if you make the choice to leave.

Irene stared at him for a long moment. “But that isn’t true, is it?”

Master Hasdrubal raised his eyebrows. “Irene?”

“We might be left alone for a while, if we don’t join you, but we won’t be left alone forever,” Irene said. Walter wanted her badly – and he wanted to smack Alan down hard. There was no way they’d be allowed to live their lives in peace, if they just backed out now. “It’s fight now or fight later.”

“Yes.” Master Hasdrubal made no attempt to soften the blow. She hated him for it. “There’s no other choice.”

Irene closed her eyes. She could see magic tearing through the mundane parts of Dragon’s Den, see her family being blasted to atoms or turned into toads or fitted with slave collars and … she’d heard Walter describe, in great detail, just what he’d done to whores in the town and that had been when the whores hadn’t been magically compelled to do as they were told. Her neck itched, a faint hint of an imaginary collar pressing against her bare skin. It wasn’t there now, but … she could easily imagine Walter fitting one around her neck, to take from her what she wouldn’t give him willingly. And Alan … no doubt Walter would take delight in enslaving Alan and putting him back to work in the fields. It was just the sort of thing he’d do.

“So it seems,” Alan said. “If you’re willing to teach us” – a faint hint of something crossed his face – “I’ll join you. Irene?”

“Yeah,” Irene said. “But just the two of us?”

“There’ll be others,” Master Hasdrubal said, flatly. “I’ll be making the same approach to others.”

Irene frowned. “Can they be trusted?”

“Can you?” Master Hasdrubal shrugged. “There’s always risk, young lady. We just do what we can to migrate it.”

Irene exchanged glances with Alan. “What now?”

“You’ve both been very naughty and you’ve been given detention, Saturday morning,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Mistress Constance has recruited me to assist with collecting certain ingredients she needs, and I’m assigning you to assist me. I’ll write something into the record book to account for it. If anyone asks, tell them I caught you whispering rude things about me. Feel free to elaborate as you see fit. I won’t mind.”

“Saturday morning,” Irene groaned. It was the one day she got to sleep in. “Can we …?”

“It won’t be that bad,” Alan said. He rarely slept late. “What time?”

“Meet me in the Great Hall at seven,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Get something to eat first – I’ll tell the kitchens to expect you. Don’t be late. This is a punishment, after all.”

“Yes, sir,” Alan said. His voice turned sour. “Morning detention on a weekend. Walter will laugh his ass off.”

“As long as he’s not thinking about what else you might be doing,” Master Hasdrubal said. “Let him laugh, as long as he doesn’t realise the truth.”

He leaned forward. “Dismissed. And remember, not a word to anyone about this.”

Alan frowned. “Can we not discuss it amongst ourselves?”

“Not in the school, no,” Master Hasdrubal said. He tapped his ear meaningfully, then indicated the wall. “You never know who might be listening.”

Irene swallowed as the gravity of the situation crashed down on her. She knew the wards monitored the student population, watching for illegal spells that even well-connected brats like Walter couldn’t use without risking expulsion, but she hadn’t wanted to accept that they had very little privacy within the school. If the Grandmaster himself was involved …

He could be watching us at all times, Irene thought. Shit.

“If you must, do it outside the wards,” Master Hasdrubal said. His voice was very firm. “But I strongly advise you not to.”

“Yes, sir,” Alan said. He stood, brushing down his robes. “And thank you.”

“Thank me later,” Master Hasdrubal said, grimly. His voice was anything but reassuring. Irene shivered, helplessly, as she stood on wobbly legs. “It could still blow up in our faces.”

***

Hasdrubal watched the two students go, feeling a pang of guilt. They shouldn’t be involved in the whole affair … no student, not even Walter, should be. They were supposed to complete their schooling and go on to an apprenticeship, not join an army that barely existed on paper … it was rare, almost unknown, for someone who hadn’t finished his schooling to seek an apprenticeship as a combat sorcerer, let alone find someone willing to take them as a squire. Walter was nineteen, according to his file, and shouldn’t be graduating for another couple of years …

Which might be why Boscha chose him, Hasdrubal mused. He could see the awful logic of it. Old enough to think he knows everything, young enough not to realise he really doesn’t.

He scowled. Magical families believed children went through a long adolescence, from fifteen to twenty-five, in which they were granted a great deal of latitude … in exchange for surrendering a great deal of control over their lives. Walter might think of himself as a Big Man in Whitehall, a man whose every word commanded respect, but he still answered to his father … something that had to chaff, as he grew older. Walter had little experience of the world outside his mansion and his school, and probably even less experience dealing with people who didn’t have to bow and scrape and laugh at his jokes. Boscha could manipulate him with the ease of years of experience and Walter would probably never even see it, not until it was far too late. A grown magician might think twice about joining a private army. Walter was too naive to realise the dangers.

Yeah, his conscience pointed out. And you’re recruiting students to your banner too.

His scowl deepened. It wasn’t the same. He had no idea what Boscha had promised Walter and his cronies, what magic words he’d used to convince them to join him, but he had been honest right from the start. Except he hadn’t been, had he? How could he? Irene might come from one of the wealthiest families in town, but she was almost as naive as Walter … Alan was smart enough to search for the trap, even though there was none to be found, yet in his own way he was naive too. And Hasdrubal was taking advantage of them.

It’s not the same, he told himself.

Yes, it is, his conscience insisted. You are using them to further your agenda. Because they’re all you have. Because they are expendable.

Hasdrubal told that part of him to shut up. The hell of it was that was exactly how a pureblood son of House Barca was expected to behave. Anyone lesser than family, which was everyone who wasn’t part of the family, was a tool to be used – and may the gods help them if they objected. His relatives wouldn’t object to him using either of the two and …

A thought crossed his mind. There was something about Alan. Something familiar … something he couldn’t see, no matter how much he meditated on it. It was there, something he should see and yet couldn’t. He shook his head, putting the thought out of his head. It would probably surface the moment he turned his attention elsewhere and thought about something else, something completely different. Wasn’t that how it always happened?

And if this works, things are going to be different around here, he promised himself. Students like Irene and Alan would not be left behind because of an accident of birth. Students like Walter would be put in their place or kicked out, instead of being allowed to bully whoever they pleased. And the teaching staff would have the power to keep them under control. He would see to it personally. The Board will have to listen to me after this.

He took a long breath, then stood. It would be a long time before the Board would listen to him and if his plan failed they would never listen to him at all …

We’ll have worse problems if we fail, he told himself, grimly. And so will they.