Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) (50 page)

Emily swallowed a curse and tried again. Naturally, the security precautions on Alassa’s windows were tougher than the ones on
her
windows. Maybe they took them down whenever the windows needed cleaning…Emily shivered, wondering if she’d made a dreadful mistake, then started to put a spell together from memory. The concept had been easy to imagine, once she’d sat down and worked out concepts from Earth she could bring to her new home, but very dangerous. If the necromancers ever realized that they could destroy something by absorbing the energy that held it together…

The window crumbled into dust. Emily coughed, clinging desperately to the wall, then flung herself into the room. She hit the carpet hard enough to knock the wind out of her, leaving her stunned and briefly helpless, but no one seemed to have heard her arrival. Pulling herself to her feet, she glanced around and realized that she was standing inside a nursery for young children. A large wooden cot, covered with gold and silver designs, stood against one wall. She felt an odd flicker of envy as she saw the toys scattered everywhere, from handmade dolls to board games, and realized that Alassa had to have grown up in this room. A large portrait of a chubby woman, glowing with life, hung above the cot. There was nothing to suggest who she might have been, or who had painted her picture. She didn’t look anything like Queen Marlena, or Alassa herself.

Alassa had everything
, Emily thought,
apart from friends.

She lowered the night-vision spell, then touched the handkerchief long enough to get a sense of Alassa’s location. The door leading out of the nursery was unlocked; she stepped through, ready to unleash a hail of spells at any target, only to encounter nothing apart from another darkened room. This one appeared to be a small bedroom, too small for Alassa or her mother. Emily guessed that it was where the nurse had slept every night; the royal family had probably hired a dozen nurses and nannies for their child. A portrait of the Royal Family hung on one wall; the child in the queen’s arms looked around five years old. It was odd to realize that it had been painted at the same time as Emily’s life was going downhill.

Pushing the thought aside, she stepped into the next room and saw the guards. They spun around to stare at her in disbelief–they had to have searched the rooms and
knew
that no one was there–and then opened their mouths to shout an alert. Emily froze them both before they could get a word out, then walked over to the door and listened, carefully. It sounded as though the cockatrice was still causing havoc.

The tug from the handkerchief pulled her towards Alassa’s bedroom. Emily took a sword from one of the guards, braced herself and pushed open the door. The room was brightly lit, illuminated by a dozen glowing balls of light, with Alassa lying on the bed, staring up at nothing. Emily shivered as she realized that the bird-magician must have put her under a spell before taking her blood. How long would it have taken him to turn Alassa into a puppet? The books had suggested that it could take days to build up the spells and weave them through the blood, but they hadn’t been very specific. And besides, Alassa had the Royal Bloodline. How long would it take to break the protections and enhancements that were worked into the Royal Bloodline?

Alassa looked peaceful as she lay on the bed, her hands folded on her chest. Emily took her pulse, then started to cast dispelling spells, one after another until she finally ran out of ideas. There were some curses and hexes that were resistant to standard dispelling spells…whatever the bird-magician had done to Alassa seemed to be one of them. Emily touched her finger to her friend’s forehead, feeling…
something
…webbed over Alassa’s mind, something so subtle that she wasn’t even sure it was there. Maybe she was just imagining it.

Maybe I should just kiss you
, she thought, grimly. There
were
spells that needed a kiss to break them, although they rarely lasted long when a trained sorcerer started to concentrate on breaking them down rather than humoring the caster. Emily
was
good at charms–it was her talent–but this was something different. It held Alassa’s mind in thrall. A mistake could cause permanent damage.

Emily hesitated, unsure of what to do. If she left Alassa here, the coup plotters could just continue with their plan, even without the bird-magician. But if she risked using a spell to shrink Alassa to carry her out of the castle, what would it do to the spell holding her under control? She had to free her friend before someone else came into the room and discovered them. But how?

There
had
been a few suggestions in the books. But they had all been long on flowery language and short on actual detail, as if the writers had been too scared to write down precise instructions. Emily wasn’t too surprised; the more she had explored the concept of Blood Magic, the easier it had been to see how it could be abused. And the more she used it, the stronger the temptations would become…

Bracing herself, Emily knelt down beside Alassa and unfolded the handkerchief. The link between Alassa and her blood was as strong as ever. For a long moment, Emily froze, unable to understand quite how to apply her thoughts in the right way…

…And then she plunged into Alassa’s mind.

N
O BOOK HAD TOLD HER ABOUT
direct mental contact, or prepared her for the experience. Emily understood why the moment she fell into Alassa’s mind, the experience was indescribable. A howling storm rose up to greet her projection, blasting her with thoughts and memories that came from her friend’s mind. Hundreds of thousands of disjointed impressions lashed out at her, each one distracting her for a split-second before vanishing again. Emily closed her eyes, but it was useless, naturally. She was navigating her astral projection within a person’s mind.

“Alassa,” she said, or thought. “Where are you?”

The storm seemed to part, just long enough to show her a direction–and the spell, holding Alassa firmly in a trance-like state. It represented itself as an evil green webbing floating through the storm, gripping parts of Alassa’s mind and securing them in place. Emily stared, wondering how she was even going to
begin
untangling the knot. The charms exam she’d been put through at Whitehall–one more complex than any she’d expected–had been nightmarish, but this…? This was worse.

This is her mind
, she reminded herself, as she started to float towards the core of Alassa’s being.
A very subtle mind control spell might be very powerful here
…

Thoughts and memories blasted up at her, each one slamming into her projection before she could look away. Alassa, standing with her parents; Alassa, meeting her cronies for the first time; Alassa, laughing as a maid became a toad in a flash of light. A storm of emotion crashed over Emily as she pushed onwards, first a sly enjoyment that became shame as the memories grew older. Alassa hadn’t realized just how much her cronies had taken advantage of her until she’d almost been killed by the Child of Destiny…

That memory rose up and swallowed Emily. She stood, facing herself, rage blasting through her mind. How
dare
this newcomer be so much better than her? Alassa had never questioned herself until after she’d come so close to death…Emily tasted her fear and shame and hatred, tempered by the sudden awareness that Emily was
important
. The meeting she’d had with the grandmaster, the brief eternity spent facing the Warden, the letter she’d had from her parents…Emily tried to look away, but the memories kept coming. Alassa had been forced to take a good hard look at herself and she hadn’t liked what she’d seen.

And then Emily had saved her life.

“Alassa,” Emily called again, trying to hear her friend. “Where are you?”

New memories surged around her. Alassa sitting on the bed, asking when her parents were going to come see her. Emily hadn’t realized that Alassa had almost been abandoned for the first five years of her life, even by her mother. She’d been brought up by nannies and maids who had done whatever they were told, spoiling the little princess rotten. Emily had known, intellectually, that royal children were often given to others to raise, but she’d never really understood what it did to their minds. By the time King Randor had reluctantly accepted that there would be no other heirs, legitimate or illegitimate, Alassa had already been warped into becoming a brat. She should have been trained from the start…

The memories grew stronger. Zed, the Court Wizard, teaching her the first few spells. Alassa hadn’t realized that he had been growing exasperated with her; Emily, seeing through her friend’s eyes, understood perfectly why Zed had eventually given up. The royal brat just hadn’t had the patience to understand what she was being told. Or maybe Zed
had
been convinced not to push any further. He had always been more interested in alchemy than in teaching unwilling students how to cast spells…

…Alassa’s first meeting with the daughters of the barons and how they’d fawned on her, treating her like a crowned queen. Emily could see that they were taking advantage of her, but Alassa had honestly never realized it. How could she? She’d never been taught how to tell when someone was crawling to her because they wanted something. Alassa learned to throw tantrums to get what she wanted, egged on by her first set of cronies…

“Emily?”

“I’m here,” Emily said. Her friend’s voice seemed to be coming from all around her, but as she concentrated she saw the path to Alassa’s soul. “What happened to you?”

“Not sure,” Alassa said. “He took me, stunned me and then…everything went so strange.”

“You’re under a spell,” Emily said. A final wave of memories struck at her, trying to force her back. She broke through and saw Alassa in front of her. Her friend seemed to be chained down, the force of the spell holding her in place. “You have to wake up.”

“I don’t know how,” Alassa said, thickly. This deep in her core, the spell couldn’t prevent her from slowly recovering the ability to think. “I don’t…”

Idiot
, Emily told herself.
You’re in a mental representation, not reality
!

Alassa’s voice was puzzled. “What’s a mental representation?”

Emily flushed. Alassa had heard her thoughts? Of course, she reminded herself, tartly. This
was
a mental representation, not reality.

“I’m inside your mind,” she said, finally. She concentrated hard, trying not to think about Jade or anything else she would have preferred to keep to herself. It wasn’t easy. “The spell is holding you trapped inside your own mind.”

Saying it out loud made it easy to visualise. “You have to take control back,” she added. “Force yourself up and out of the spell’s grip.”

Alassa rattled her chains. “I don’t know how,” she protested. “I can’t break free!”

“This is your mind,” Emily reminded her. “The chains could be made of anything…”

Reality–or her perception of reality–shifted. The chains were suddenly made out of parchment, which started to tear as Alassa pulled herself free. Emily felt her friend’s mind suddenly expanding, growing more and more powerful with every second, forcing Emily to travel back down the link into her own body. There was a sudden rush of energy and the world spun around her. When she opened her eyes–unaware that she’d closed them–she found herself looking down at Alassa.

“What…” Alassa coughed and started again. “What did you
do
to me?”

“I used some of your blood,” Emily admitted. Part of her mind insisted that it wasn’t wise to tell anyone, but Alassa would work it out for herself sooner or later–or tell Lady Barb, who would probably know enough to guess the truth. “It was the only way to find you.”

Alassa rolled out of bed and stood upright. “I think I got some of your memories too,” she said. “What were the dragon-things in your homeland?”

Emily stared at her. She hadn’t realized there was a possibility that Alassa would pick up memories from her too–although it would be only fair. But dragons? There were no dragons on Earth, unless they were very good at hiding.
She’d
certainly never seen a living dragon until after meeting Void.

And how much had Alassa picked up from her thoughts?

“I think we’ll have to discuss that later,” she said. She passed Alassa one of the swords, then walked towards the door. “We have to deal with the duke and find your father.”

The guards outside were still frozen, thankfully. Emily picked up the other sword and held it in one hand, trying to decide if she should attempt to interrogate one of the guards. It would have been easy to take some of his blood and scan his mind…angrily, she squashed the thought before it could tempt her any further. The whole concept of Blood Magic was terrifyingly easy to abuse.

“Coming,” Alassa said. She glanced up as the roaring grew louder. “You freed the cockatrice?”

Emily grinned. “That should keep them busy for a while,” she said. “Where do we go now?”

Alassa pushed one hand against a stone in the wall. There was a rumble as a stone slab moved to one side, allowing them to enter the secret passageway.

“No,” Emily said. “If it is the duke, won’t he know about the passageways? They’ll expect us to use them and we’d be caught like rats in a trap.”