The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22) by Christopher Nuttall (top ebook reader txt) 📗

“Gordian” - Lady Barb’s lips thinned with distaste - “is hinting that he may require my services. The school has to be secured during the conference, even if it means keeping the students under lockdown. I think he’s trying to recall everyone who’s ever worked for Whitehall. You might even get a letter yourself.”

Emily snorted. “I was Head Girl, and I didn’t even last out the year,” she said. “I don’t think Gordian wants me anywhere near Whitehall.”

“He did go to some trouble to ensure you weren’t allowed to cross the border,” Lady Barb agreed, mildly. “But with so many others on their way to the school, everyone from Lucknow to Void himself, he might find himself pushed into inviting you anyway.”

Emily felt an odd little pang. “Are you going to go?”

“Not yet,” Lady Barb said. “I need to check on Miles, then... well, we’ll see. Void was fairly sure you needed a bodyguard, though I don’t see it myself. You’re famous here.”

“It isn’t me that’s famous,” Emily said. “It’s the version of me that lives in their heads.”

She shook her head in annoyance. She’d seen the books and pamphlets in the marketplace. The writers - whoever they were - credited her with things she hadn’t done and sayings she hadn’t said. Their Emily was a confused mixture of George Washington, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and Joan of Arc. She’d read a book that claimed she’d strangled Shadye with his own beard - Shadye hadn’t had a beard - and another that insisted she was the lost heir to the empire, hidden away by loyalists until her time. And yet another, she reflected with a certain amount of amusement, that insisted she was a commoner who’d been raised by a powerful magician. She had to admit that writer was surprisingly close to the truth.

“So it seems,” Lady Barb said. She passed Emily a stack of letters. “Go read these in the bath, if you like. And then you can spend some time thinking about the future.”

Emily thumbed her way down the letters. “Jan didn’t write,” she said. “Is he alright?”

“I doubt it,” Lady Barb said, bluntly. “He betrayed his master. He’d be in deep shit even if he were wholly in the right.”

“If I could do something...” Emily looked at her. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Right now, Master Lucknow has too many other problems,” Lady Barb said. “If you bring this to a successful conclusion, perhaps by convincing the two sides to come to terms, you’ll have enough clout to dicker with him. Until then...”

Emily snorted. “And how am I supposed to accomplish the impossible?”

“That’s why you were given the job,” Lady Barb reminded her. Her face darkened, perhaps remembering the other times Emily had done the impossible. “If you succeed, they win; if you fail, they win, too.”

“Brilliant,” Emily said, sourly. She stood, muttering a charm to protect the letters from water. “Why don’t they care about the future?”

“I imagine they care a great deal about the future,” Lady Barb said. “They just have conflicting visions of what the future should be.”

Chapter Twenty-One

EMILY COULDN’T HELP FEELING A PANG of guilt as she stepped into the bathroom, muttered a spell to heat the water and undressed rapidly before climbing into the giant bathtub. There were no taps, not here. The maid had had to fill a couple of buckets with water, then carry them into the bathroom and pour them into the tub. There was a pipe for letting the water go, afterwards, but Emily wasn’t sure where it actually went. It wouldn’t surprise her if she discovered it merely poured the water onto the street below.

They used to throw human waste out the window, she reminded herself. That practice, thankfully, had declined sharply over the last few years. She had a feeling she might have saved more lives by encouraging sanitation than anything else she’d introduced. What do they do with it now?

She settled back in the water, allowing it to soak into her aching muscles, then summoned the letters with a wave of her hand and started to read. Alassa had written a detailed outline of everything that had gone into planning the conference, as well as an admission she’d be sending a representative rather than attending in person. Melissa had said much the same thing, suggesting they weren’t the only people with doubts about the conference. The letters spoke of confidence, but it was alarmingly clear that no one really expected the conference to solve anything. Frieda had written three letters in quick succession, the first reading rather oddly until Emily realized it had been written before she’d been arrested. The second letter promised bloody retribution on Master Lucknow and Gordian - Emily hoped the Grandmaster wasn’t reading the letters before they were sent out - while the third moaned about how the conference was interfering with her studies. She was meant to take her final exams at the end of the year, she reminded Emily, and it was starting to look as though she wouldn’t be able to properly prepare for them. Emily was inclined to agree. It might have been wiser to cancel the school year or hold the conference somewhere else.

But there aren’t many places that would be considered remotely neutral, she mused, as she put the first set of letters to one side. Mountaintop or Stronghold would have the same problem.

She scowled, then turned her attention to the next letter. Cat seemed torn between anger at her treatment - he offered her a safe refuge, if she needed to run - and annoyance that he and his followers hadn’t been invited to the conference. Emily was surprised. There was no disputing the simple fact Cat controlled a nexus point, ensuring his castle was effectively impregnable. And he wasn’t the only one trying to build a kingdom in the formerly Blighted Lands. They should all have been invited to