“Emily.” She looked like an angry cat. Her voice was so tightly controlled that Emily knew she was furious. “Come with me.”
She swept past Emily and headed down the corridor. Emily hesitated, then followed her into a small workroom. It was clean and tidy, the tools placed on the workbench or hanging from the walls. She wasn’t surprised. Anyone who was allowed to use the workroom would know that it had to be kept clean, that they had to tidy up after themselves. Sergeant Miles would not be pleased with anyone who didn’t take care of the school’s tools. They’d spend weeks on punishment duties.
“Have a seat,” Lady Barb said. Her voice softened, just slightly. “Just let me put up a privacy ward and I’ll be right with you.”
Emily eyed her, worriedly. Lady Barb didn’t seem to be angry at her, but it was clear the older woman was pissed. She strode up and down, her fingers curling into fists as she cast a trio of privacy wards into the air. Emily watched her, sensing the wards falling into place one by one. Lady Barb wasn’t just trying to keep their conversation private, Emily realized grimly. She was using the spellcasting to calm herself.
“That should do it,” Lady Barb said, finally.
Emily braced herself. “Are you all right?”
“No,” Lady Barb said, curtly. She shot Emily a look that warned her not to ask any more questions. “What did the Grandmaster want?”
“I’m Head Girl.” Emily looked up at her mentor. “Is there any way of getting out of it?”
Lady Barb rolled her eyes. “Only you would try to get out of it,” she said, her voice sour, as if she was still distracted. “Everyone else schemes to get in.”
“I didn’t want it,” Emily said.
“I suppose it wouldn’t look quite so good on your particular resume,” Lady Barb said, with a grimace. “Necromancer’s Bane, Baroness of Cockatrice, Savior of Farrakhan, Savior of Beneficence ... Head Girl.”
Emily had to smile. “It does look a little small,” she said. “But ... is there any way to get out of it?”
“Not without paying a price,” Lady Barb told her. “If nothing else, they’d have to meet and elect a new Head Pupil.”
“Ouch.” Emily met Lady Barb’s eyes. “He also wants me to set up a dueling club and run a contest.”
Lady Barb looked irked. “As your special project?”
Emily nodded. “I can’t think of anything better ...”
“It’s never easy to come up with something that hasn’t already been done,” Lady Barb admitted. “Finding something that will succeed is even harder.”
She sighed. “There has been a push to reopen a dueling club for several years,” she added, tiredly. “But it was never a possibility until a new Grandmaster took up his office.”
“I was told it isn’t good training for war,” Emily said. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Lady Barb shrugged. “To be fair, it does teach some of the skills combat sorcerers need. Thinking on one’s feet, snapping off curses and hexes at speed ... they’re skills that are desperately required in combat. But duelists are also taught to hold back, something that can be disastrous in a real fight.”
Emily made a face. She knew hundreds of spells that couldn’t be used in a duel without—at best—forfeiting the match. The risk of maiming—or killing—her opponent would be far too high. And yet, in a real fight, she’d use those spells without a second thought. Training herself not to use them would hamper her in later life.
“It will be fun, for everyone who wants to take part,” Lady Barb added. “But not everyone will want to take part.”
“They’ll want to keep their skills a mystery,” Emily said. She’d been cautioned not to show everything she could do. “What happens when younger students want to go up against older students?”
“The younger ones will get their butts kicked,” Lady Barb said, dryly. “Or you’ll have the perfect excuse to humiliate the older pupils.”
Emily sighed. “I don’t want to do this. But I just can’t think of anything else.”
She looked up. “What about reorganizing the library?”
“That wouldn’t be quite so spectacular,” Lady Barb said. “You’d get more credit for something that lasted.”
“Like the mentorship program,” Emily mused. “But how much work did Aloha actually do after it got started?”
“Probably quite a bit,” Lady Barb said.
She held up a hand. “You shouldn’t have any trouble setting up a basic roster, perhaps selecting a few older students to serve as additional supervisors. That won’t take much work. Then you can run the club one day each week. I don’t think you’ll have to do that much work, once you get started. It’ll probably wind up running itself.”
“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. She’d never liked dueling, even before she’d killed Master Grey. But then, she’d never liked team sports either. Just because she didn’t like something didn’t mean everyone else detested it too. “If I do as little work as possible ...”
“Do enough to give the club a reasonable chance of success,” Lady Barb advised. “It does have a great deal of potential. If nothing else, it will give dozens of other students—the ones who haven’t been able to get onto sports teams—the chance to compete. It will certainly be more fun than Martial Magic.”
Emily nodded, ruefully. Martial Magic wasn’t fun. She had to admit she’d put on a great deal of muscle over the last five years—as well as learning countless spells and techniques—but it hadn’t been fun. She’d ached every day until her body had grown used to heavy exercise, then crawled through mud and sneaked through woods ... she’d never liked it. She wasn’t surprised that only a handful of pupils took the course every year.
“And do the same for the rest of your duties as Head Girl,” Lady Barb added. “You have to show willingness to reap the full reward.”
Emily rubbed her forehead. “Why didn’t they ask me first?”
“Probably because most people would leap at the chance to prove themselves,” Lady Barb answered. “Being Head Girl here, Emily, is something that will add breadth to your resume. It will definitely count in your favor when you start looking for an apprenticeship.”
I already have an offer from Void, Emily thought. And that comes without conditions.
She frowned. Void had already made her the offer. He wouldn’t care if she was Head Girl or not. Or would he? Aloha had had masters clamoring to take her as an apprentice ... had they been impressed by her conduct as Head Girl? No one could deny that Aloha had been brave as well as clever, risking everything on a mentoring program that could easily have gone bad. Failure would have tarnished her future.
“I’ll see if I can think of anything else,” she said. “But if not ...”
“Good thinking,” Lady Barb said. “Gordian wants this to succeed. I daresay he’ll be more inclined to help you if you’re doing something he chose.”
“And it saves me the job of coming up with something else,” Emily said.
She looked down at her hands. “Which way did you vote?”