A thousand years before Emily was brought to the Nameless World, the concept of magical education was very new and the early magicians were struggling to codify the laws of magic and devise ways to cast spells safely. It was a very different and dangerous time, with inhuman threats lurking in the shadows and magicians often at risk from their own spells. It was rare, in those days, for women to study magic, let alone practice openly.

This is the story of the first female student at Whitehall, and how she blazed a trail for so many others.

The novella is written to be stand-alone, but it is – at least partly – a direct sequel to Past Tense (Schooled in Magic X). If you would like to see the novella expanded into a full novel, please feel free to let us know.

Despite the importance of Whitehall School, there have been surprisingly few attempts to unlock the secrets of the school and its history. Successive grandmasters have been reluctant to permit archaeologists to explore underneath the school itself, or to search the pocket dimension for clues that might lead to whoever built the school. Worse, a significant amount of historical material was destroyed during the wars and what remains is not informative enough to put together a full picture of just what happened, the year the Whitehall Commune stumbled across the castle and turned it into the first school of magic. The result is a hodgepodge of historical sources that regularly contradict one another, and even contradict themselves, and can therefore not be considered reliable.

No one knows who built the castle. Lord Whitehall discovered it, through some unknown means, but it was not he who laid the groundwork for the building itself. (It is generally believed the castle builders made a failed attempt to control the nexus point and were killed in the backlash.) Lord Whitehall did take control of the nexus point under the castle, allowing him to turn the building into a fortress capable of standing against almost anything, yet precisely how did that is another mystery. We know some names that have been passed down through the years - Bernard De Born, Lady Julianne, Lord Alfred, the enigmatic Dark Lady - but precisely who they were and what they did is unknown. Indeed, we have no idea why Lord Whitehall chose to found the school in the first place. The concept of a formal educational establishment was largely unknown at the time.

Regardless, we do know that Whitehall grew and flourished in the years since Lord Whitehall took control of the castle. The growing population of trained magicians laid the groundwork for the magical community we know today, as well as improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The concept of educating every magician, regardless of their origins, took root at Whitehall and spread, despite opposition from various senior magicians. We know this, but we don’t know the details. Precisely when, for example, was it decided to accept female students? Or how, precisely, did Lord Bernard succeed Lord Whitehall as Grandmaster of Whitehall?

It was not until Grandmaster Gordian succeeded Grandmaster Hasdrubal, four years ago, that there was a serious attempt to open the tunnels under the school in a bid to answer some of those questions. The process caused considerable disruption to the school - quite by accident, a pocket dimension was nearly collapsed - yet it did reveal previously unknown chambers within the school. Many of those chambers had been emptied when they were abandoned, for reasons unknown, but a surprising amount of historical material was recovered, transported to the surface, and examined.

The manuscript you hold in your hands is one of them.

I cannot swear to the historical accuracy of the information contained within the scroll. Manuscripts we know to date back to the founding often contradict themselves. The unknown author of Life of Whitehall later wrote and published Life of Bernard, which appeared to indulge in a certain degree of historical revisionism. Lord Whitehall’s accomplishments were given to Bernard. (It is worth noting that Bernard’s own account of those times went to some pains to correct the record, returning Whitehall to his place of honour.) Life of Whitehall insists that Bernard was Lord Whitehall’s son as well as his apprentice; this manuscript, by contrast, states that Bernard was in fact Lord Whitehall’s son-in-law and notes that the historical Lady Julianne was Lord Whitehall’s daughter. It is worth noting that Life of Bernard glosses over the question completely.

I also cannot swear the scroll is genuine. Forged historical documents are common and fakes difficult to spot without the proper spells. The sheer lack of hard data ensures that fast-talking conmen can explain the historical discrepancies, even when dealing with a properly trained academic archaeologist. My guild has spent years developing techniques for verifying the age of new documents, particularly when they were discovered under dubious circumstances, yet we have to admit that we have been fooled more than once. Indeed, one particularly good forgery remained undiscovered for nearly a decade and was only revealed as part of a confession when the forger was arrested for an unrelated matter. This was, of course, hugely embarrassing. A number of careers had been built on the forged document.

This scroll was discovered under the school, in a sealed compartment that was only revealed by chance, and it has passed all the tests. However, it contradicts so much of what we know - or think we know - that it is difficult to be entirely sure.

I advise you to bear that in mind.

Historian Titus, History Guild

On my fifteenth birthday, I ran away from home.

It was something I had been mulling over for the last two years, ever since I’d turned into a young maiden, ever since I had realised I had magic. I had grown up in Bramble Fire, and never gone more than a few miles beyond the town’s perimeter, but I had never truly fitted in. People had pointed and whispered from the very first day, when my father introduced me as his daughter, and it had never gotten any better. The magic just made it worse. Women with magic were dangerous. Everyone said so.

I hadn’t meant to hurt David, really I hadn’t. But he had tried to kiss me and I had panicked and my magic had sparked and now when he looked at me I saw nothing but fear in his eyes.

I’d laid my plans carefully, ever since a passing Peddler had told me the news. I had packed a knapsack with everything I needed, everything that belonged to me. Never let it be said that I was a thief, picking what rightfully belong to others. I did my last set of chores as I waited for nightfall, for the brief hour between sunset and complete darkness, then slipped out of the house - bidding my siblings a silent goodbye - and made my way across the fields to the trees. I was a skilled woodsman. There were few who could match me when it came to slipping through the forest without being spotted. As long as I left without being noticed, I would be well away by the time the alarm was sounded. If it ever was. I suspected Bramble Fire would be quietly glad to see the back of me.

My father caught me at the edge of the fields.

“And where,” he asked, “do you think you are going?”

I tried not to flinch, caught red-handed. My father - Gurdon - was a decent father, as fathers went, but I was trying to run away from home. I hesitated, torn between the urge to tell him precisely where was going and a strange guilt for leaving him and the rest of the family. Children had obligations to their parents, including the obligation to look after them as they grew older. I might not be a son, or even his eldest child, but I still had duties. And I was planning to travel much further than one of our neighbouring villages. If something happened to my father, I might never hear about it - or if I did, it would be too late to do anything about it.

Father cocked his head. “Where?”

“Whitehall,” I said. The peddler had told me the castle, the school for young magicians, was now accepting female students. It had been rare for women to be schooled in magic, unless she wanted to be a hedge witch, and even then the training had been very limited. “I’m not coming back.”

The words cost me. I had grown up with the disdain of the entire village, but my father had never treated me as anything other than his daughter. The idea of abandoning him didn’t sit well with me, even if there was no other choice. I couldn’t bear the thought of marrying a farmer boy and bearing his children, spending my entire life as a broodmare … if, of course, I could find a man willing to marry me. There were no secrets in small towns and everyone knew what I’d done to David. No one believed it had been an accident.

Father studied me for a long moment. I looked back at him. We made an odd pair. It was easy to see why the old woman muttered darkly about just who, or what, my mother had slept with, nine months before she died giving birth to me. Father was just like the rest of the villagers. He had fiery red hair and pale skin, a short and muscular body, and a practicality that sometimes made him appear cold and uncaring. I was tall and willowy, with dark hair and darker slanted eyes that made me look very different, compared to my siblings and step-siblings. If my mother had lived, Father might have wanted a few words with her about just what she’d been doing before conceiving me. There were plenty of stories of young girls who found themselves courted by the Other Folk - or, more likely, by passing peddlers. It spoke well of Father that he had accepted me as his daughter, right from the start. No one would have blamed him for casting me out to die.

“It’s a long walk to the mountains,” Father said, finally. “Are you sure you want to go?”

I blinked in surprise. I had envisaged a hundred versions of this conversation, but none of my imaginations had suggested it would go this way. Father would have been within his rights to march me back home and lock me up, before selling me off to anyone willing to take me. Or to turn his back on me and tell me to get lost. No one would blame him for that either. The chatterboxes who insisted I was an unnatural child would tell him I deserved little else.

“There’s nowhere else to go,” I said. The magic burned within me like a fire. The idea of trying to quench it was unthinkable. So too was the idea of replacing Hilde, the local hedge witch. I knew the price she had paid for her power, the isolation that came with her role. “I have to go.”

Father said nothing for a long moment. I wished I knew what he was thinking. He had five children and seven stepchildren, all of whom were more inclined to spend the rest of their lives in Bramble Fire or the neighbouring villages. The farm would not die without me. Indeed, my absence might even help. It was unusual for a daughter to inherit her father’s farm, but her husband might stake a claim on the lands. I wondered, not for the first time, if Father had been concerned when I’d started walking out with David. It would have complicated his life, and his children’s inheritance, if David had had a claim to a share of the farm.

“I don’t fit in here,” I said. “And you know it.”

“Yes, but you are still my daughter,” Father said. “Are you aware of the dangers?”

I nodded, curtly. The roads outside the villages were known for being dangerous. The forests were even more inhospitable to passing travellers. We knew little of what was happening beyond our villages, but it was clear there were risks in travelling beyond the known world … particularly for a woman. The peddlers were about the only people who travelled far from home and while their lives seemed wonderful, I knew they were often precarious. It was quite easy, I had been told, for a peddler to discover his trade goods were worthless, or to be robbed by poor or desperate villagers. And very few - if any - peddlers were women. It was young men who fantasised about becoming peddlers, not young girls.

“Yes, Father,” I said.

I wondered, suddenly, how he had known I was planning to leave. I had thought he was fast asleep, along with my stepmother and the rest of their conjoined brood. Where else could I go?

Father met my eyes. “Is this about David?”

I shook my head, not daring to speak. Father had always been good at sniffing out lies. The truth was … I was ashamed of what I had done to him, and yet I was unwilling to give up practising magic. And that meant the villagers would eventually drive me out or kill me if I refused to go. I understood their feelings - everyone knew magic was dangerous, and doubly so if a woman had magic - but if I was going to leave I want to go on my own terms. The idea of living alone in the forest, publicly shunned and privately consulted by everyone, simply didn’t appeal. I wanted to be something more.

“Very well.” Father reached into his pocket and produced a dark leather pouch. “I told myself I would give this to you the day you left, either to marry or … something else. Take it with you, and go with my blessing.”

His lips quirked. “And if you do become a great lady, give us your blessing in return.”

I took the pouch and swallowed, astonished, as I felt the money inside. It was unusual for any of us to have more than a couple of coins, if any, and there was little use for it in the village. We bartered with our neighbours - near or far - trading goods for services or vice versa. I had wanted to take a little money with me, when I left, but I had none. The idea of Father giving me money he didn’t have was just laughable. And yet, he had put a pouch in my hand … where had he even gotten the money?

It wasn’t until much later that I figured out the answer.

“Be careful,” Father observed, unaware of my thoughts. “You could lose that very easily.”

I stared at him. I knew, without having to ask, that my stepmother hadn’t known the money existed. She wasn’t a bad stepmother, any more than my father was a bad father, but she was parsimonious to a fault and if she had realised he intended to give the money to me she would have exploded with rage. The value of the coins was somewhat debatable - I had done plenty of bargaining, when peddlers had passed through the village, and I knew it wasn’t easy to be sure what the coins were actually worth - but they were worth something. Her older children could have made better matches if they had brought the money with them.

“Father, I …”

Father cut me off. “I’m proud of you,” he said. “I have been proud to call you my daughter. And if your destiny calls you elsewhere, then I wish you luck. And farewell.”

He nodded politely to me, then turned and strode away without looking back. I stared after him, my heart beating like a drum. I wanted to call to him, to beg his forgiveness, and yet I knew there was no way things could go back to normal. How could they? The idea of me having a normal life had died, the moment I had shocked David. The villagers would never forget. It was just a matter of time until they told my father to kick me out or did it themselves. My stepmother might already be hinting it was time to marry me off or simply tell me to leave. The thought didn’t hurt as much as it should. It was far from uncommon, in an age of high mortality, for families to blend together as widows and widowers sought comfort and support in each other, but my stepmother could not be faulted for pressing the interests of her children ahead of her stepchildren. Everyone did it.

I forced myself to turn and look north, towards the Craggy Mountains. They were clearly visible in the gloom, towering up into clouds that marked the border between the northern realm and the south. Or so I had been told. I knew very little about the kingdoms and princes and magicians and everything else that lurked beyond the borderline, and what I knew could not be taken on trust. I had once met a passing fortune-teller who’d insisted he could tell us what was happening on the other side of the world; Father, not being a fool, had demanded proof of the man’s powers. He’d left in something of a hurry after that! I smiled at the memory, silently blessing the man who had called himself my father, and then started to walk. I didn’t expect pursuit, not any longer, but I still needed to put some distance between myself and the village. The last thing I needed was someone trying to drag me home to Father. That would be embarrassing.

And if they tried, I thought, it would make them the most unpopular person in the village.

The thought haunted me as I walked north. It was not an easy trip, even though I could see the mountains in the distance and as long as I was walking towards them I was heading in the right general direction. I had no trouble finding food and drink - I knew which plants were poisonous, or how to trap small animals and start a fire to cook the meat, or even find water that was safe to drink - and I knew to avoid the deepest darkest parts of the forest, but that then I had to pass near a number of villages, none of which knew me. It was a grim reminder that the most dangerous creatures in the world walked on two legs. Back home, everyone have known and feared my father’s temper. Here …

One village thought me a thief and put me in the stocks for a day. I slipped away at nightfall, after recovering my pouch from the woman who’d stolen it, and made a mental note never to return. Another was in the grip of an army and I found myself threatened with conscription, or worse, before I managed to escape into the undergrowth. A third was surprisingly friendly, until I discovered that the local headsman was desperately looking for a bride. He really must have been desperate. My appearance alone marked me as an outsider, while he knew nothing of my family or what they might give him in exchange for taking me off their hands. Somehow, I doubted he’d taken one look at me and fallen so deeply in love he forgot the practical considerations. No headsman ever born could afford to lose track of reality. It wouldn’t be long before his people overthrew him. And a fourth village was burnt to the ground, the handful of buildings little more than blackened patches of scorched earth. It couldn’t have happened that long ago, I decided, or the village would have been reclaimed by the surrounding countryside, but I never worked out who or what laid waste to the village. There were no bodies, as far as I could tell. My instincts were screaming at me to run. I did, and I never looked back.

The landscape grew rougher as I neared the mountains. I fell in with a couple of travelling bards, who were kind enough to point me to the mountain pass and let me stay with them until we reached the nearest village to the magic school. I didn’t hang around. My experiences had taught me that bards were not always welcome, particularly in the more isolated villages. And besides, I wasn’t entirely sure of their motives. It would be very difficult indeed if they hadn’t been friendly. Bards had a bad reputation for seducing young women and I doubted the local villagers would take my side if I found myself trapped. They might consider it preferable to a bard seducing one of their daughters.

I had been told there was a well-kept road leading directly to the castle. The peddler who had told me that had either been lying or been misinformed. It could have been either. The road was far from well-kept, little more than a rocky track leading up through the mountain pass. The forests were so close to the roads that there was almost no room to hide, if someone who might be unfriendly appeared in the distance. I had been careful to avoid men on horseback, and convoys larger than a handful of men. They had bad reputations. I didn’t think I was a runaway serf - my father had been a freeman - but they might have different ideas. For all I knew, I had left my home kingdom behind weeks ago. I haven’t crossed anything that resembled a borderline, but I was pretty sure no one had marked the borders so carefully. And no one would speak for me if I were caught.

The road grew harder to follow as I neared the castle. I could feel the magic in the air, currents of power swirling around the mountaintops, drawing me onwards despite my doubts and fears. I had magic - I could feel the power beating within my breast, I knew what had done to David - and yet I had no idea what sort of reception I’d get, when I presented myself at the castle. I hadn’t met many magicians. They rarely passed through the village and when they did children and women were kept firmly out of sight. The only one I’d spoken to was Hilde and she had been a hedge witch. I was fairly sure the magicians didn’t acknowledge her as one of them.

My fears grew stronger as I walked on. Sweat trickled down my back as the road widened suddenly, revealing a small stone wall. It looked like a joke - I could jump over the wall easily - but I could sense raw power crackling around it. It was like staring into the sun. My soul quailed, just for a moment. I almost wanted to turn and walk away. It wouldn’t be that hard to find a place to live in the forest, or someone willing to take me in. There was always room for a young woman willing to marry a widower, no matter her background, if she was willing to raise her stepchildren as her own. My lack of apparent family would be a bonus. I wouldn’t have any grasping relatives demanding a share of the family inheritance.

And then I saw - or sensed - the magician, standing by the gap in the wall.

And I knew the die was cast.

The magician and I stared at each other for a long moment.

He was a tall man, taller than me, with short blond hair and a simple neatly trimmed moustache that would have made my father and his peers chuckle and ask - perhaps not to his face - if he couldn’t raise a beard. His eyes were bright blue, meeting mine with surprising equanimity; his body lacked the scars of a lifetime on the farm, but had marks of its own that suggested magic was far from a safe occupation. He leaned on a battered wooden staff that had clearly seen better days - I suspected, from the way he was slouching against the staff, that he didn’t really need it. His clothes were a strange mixture of practical and fanciful. He wore a loose shirt and trousers, the kind of garb that would be worn by any apprentice craftsman, but they were of finer quality than anything I’d seen in my entire life. It was hard, almost impossible, to guess his age. I thought he was younger than my father, but appearances could be deceptive. I learnt, later, that he was a couple of years older than my father.

“Good morning,” the magician said. His voice was oddly accented, and he spoke like a well-born craftsman, but I had no trouble understanding him. “I am Bernard De Born. Might I enquire as to your name?”

I swallowed hard, suddenly all too aware of my lack of education. I knew how I should present myself, if I ever came to the attention of the local nobility, but I had no idea how I should address a magician. He seemed friendly, yet … I cursed under my breath. Should I bow? Should I knew? Prostrate myself? Or what?

“I am Janis, my Lord,” I managed. Was that the right approach? Or was I about to blasted for being cheeky? I had heard stories of young boys crippled by passing noblemen for not getting out of the way quickly enough, if they even bothered with an excuse. “Is this Whitehall?”

The magician smiled, as if I had asked a very stupid question. “This is Whitehall, Janis,” he said. “You must have come a very long way.”

I nodded, suddenly aware – too - of just how terrible I looked. My clothes were torn and tattered, my hair dripping out of my scarf and spilling around my shoulders. I should have donned male guise, but I doubted it would have fooled anyone … and it might have been worse for me if it had. I didn’t look like a prospective apprentice. I looked like someone who had been living in the forest for the last year.

“I came from Bramble Fire,” I said. I knew even as I spoke that he would never have heard of my home village. It was one of many such villages that were barely known outside the district. “I … My Lord, I … I heard Whitehall was taking female students.”

“Did you now?” Bernard De Born’s expression gave nothing away. “And where did you hear that?”

I felt a sudden terrible fear that my entire journey had been for nothing. “A peddler passed through the village. He told us that the school was accepting students, people willing to be educated in the new way of magic. He said there were female students already and that … and that any who went would be welcome. I …”

My legs buckled. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“It is true the risks of teaching magic to women, and encouraging them to use it, have been much reduced,” he said. His tone was flat, his face unreadable. “But we have no female students. Julianne … is not precisely a student.”

My heart sank. “Then let me be the first!”

He smiled, just for a second. “You have nerve. I’ll grant you that, if nothing else. But do you have the stubbornness, and determination, to succeed in magic? To learn the trade without shortcuts, the kind of shortcuts that are explicitly forbidden within the school? To bear the burden of knowledge, knowledge that will cut you off from your relatives … perhaps forever? If you step through these doors, your life will never be the same again.”

“My relatives don’t want to see me again,” I said. I feared it was true, even though my father hadn’t actually kicked me out and disowned me. “I really don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The magician pointed north. “There’s a small town on the other side of the mountains,” he said. “You could go there and live there, if you wish. You will be safe.”

“I don’t want to be safe,” I said. The magic bubbled within me. “I want to learn magic.”

“I see.” Bernard De Born met my eyes. “What happened?”

I hesitated, unsure what - if anything - I should say. I knew what he was asking. He wanted to know how I had discovered I had magic, why my family might have disowned me. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I feared I had no choice. Lying wasn’t an option. I had the feeling the magician would spot a lie as quickly as my father. And if I lied to him …

“There was a young man,” I said, finally. My heart twisted. I would have been happy with David, if things had been different. “We went walking out together. He … he tried to kiss me and I panicked and my magic sparked … and I hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt him and yet … since then, I’ve been practising, but … I want to learn how to use magic. My magic.”

“You’ve been practising,” Bernard De Born said. “What can you do?”

I hesitated again. No one had caught me practising magic in the village. If they had … I would be lucky if they had only beat me halfway to death and thrown whatever was left of me out to die. Father would have had no choice but to kick me out – or worse. I would have sooner undressed in front of an audience, than performed magic in front of a stranger. And yet … I had to prove I was worth taking on as a student and apprentice. I held out my hand, cupping my palm, and concentrated. A flame appeared, dancing above my skin without ever quite touching it, and grew rapidly. Bernard looked impressed, just for a second. I hoped that was a good sign.

“Crude,” he said. “But effective.”

I nodded, the flames flickering and dying as I lost my grip on the power. My legs wobbled unsteadily as the last of the flames vanished, a grim reminder that pushing myself too far was dangerous. I had discovered the hard way that trying to experiment too much was asking for trouble. I had been very lucky not to faint in the forest, so far from the village that it was unlikely anyone would find me before I died of exposure. Or worse. If they realised what had been doing …

“You have potential,” Bernard De Born said. “Come with me.”

He turned and led the way through the gap in the wall. I hesitated, then forced my wobbly legs to follow him. Magic sparkled around me, growing stronger as we made our way towards the castle. It towered over us, so large I had difficulty believing it was even real. The largest building I had seen in my entire life was a longhouse belonging to an extended family, with room for over forty men, women, and children, but the castle made it look tiny. I got dizzy just looking up at the sheer immensity of the building. It was difficult, if not impossible, to believe it was made by human hands. I learnt, later, that no one knew who had really built the castle. It had been deserted when Lord Whitehall arrived to lay claim to the nexus point and name the castle after himself.

Bernard kept walking, but reduced his pace so I could look around. It was just too big. The hallway was immense, the stone corridors large enough for three or four men to walk abreast comfortably, the handful of teaching halls seemingly big enough for much bigger classes. I spotted a number of young men practising their spells, watched carefully by older magicians. There were no women. I wondered, suddenly, if Bernard was going to get into trouble bringing me into the castle. It was unusual for women to be allowed to enter the headman’s hut when he was passing judgement, after extensive consultation with the village elders. I had certainly never been allowed to enter myself, even after what had happened to David.

I swallowed, then asked. “Will your master be angry if you bring me to him?”

The magician chuckled, as if I had said something funny. “I shall have a few sharp words with myself later,” he said. “I am the master of the school.”

My complexion, thankfully, hid my embarrassment. And confusion. Lord Bernard was the master of the school? What had happened to Lord Whitehall? And what … I pushed the thought out of my head as Lord Bernard led me into an office and pointed me at a chair. My stomach growled uncomfortably as I sat, reminding me it had been too long since I had eaten something. Anything. Lord Bernard shot me a sympathetic look, then snapped his fingers. A young woman entered a moment later, bearing a tray of food. I hesitated, even as the food was placed in front of me. I had been cautioned never to eat food without a clear invitation.

“Please, eat,” Lord Bernard said. The servant retreated and returned a moment later the second tray, which she placed in front of her master. “A magician has to eat to power his spells. We discovered that a long time ago.”

“I never knew,” I muttered. The stew in front of me looked and smelled delicious. The bread was clearly new, baked only a few short hours ago. I was very familiar with stews intended to use up the last of the slaughtered animal, but this … I shook my head as I started to eat, hoping I wasn’t making a bad impression. “No one ever told me …”

“No one told me either, until …” Bernard shook his head. “What else do you know about magic?”

I took a bite of bread, trying to compose an answer. “Very little. I was told magic was inherently dangerous, that men who practised magic could be very dangerous and women shouldn’t practice magic at all. The hedge witch couldn’t give me much instruction. I thought … that’s why I came here.”

Bernard leaned back in his chair. “Magic is … complicated. In the olden days, using magic damaged the body and mind alike. Men who used magic risked going insane, a problem made worse by … well, we’ll talk about that later, if you stay. Women who used magic lost their ability to have children, for various reasons. It took us years to determine ways to cast spells that limited the damage to the human body. There are still issues, for reasons we have never been able to determine, but it is much safer – now - for both men and women.”

He met my eyes. “It is true we sent out messages inviting magicians to Whitehall. It is also true that we have had no female candidates, until now. Many of us are unsure about accepting young women as students, even after … perhaps because of … well, that’s something else we’ll talk about later. If you joined us, you would be the first female student and you would be very much isolated from the rest of the student body. It would take time for them to accept you as a peer. My wife is old enough to be your mother, more or less, and she was the daughter of Lord Whitehall himself. You are much younger and much less prepared, in many ways, to be a student. On the other hand, you do have rare potential and you are obviously willing to work hard to succeed.”

His words hung on the air. “If you want to stay, after everything I have said, you will be welcome. If not, I will understand. Not every student has chosen to remain after discovering how difficult it can be or the absence of certain shortcuts” - his lips twisted as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to smile or grimace - “although you do have that advantage of having less to unlearn. There are other options for young women in the nearby town.”

I doubted those options would be very pleasant. The villagers had often claimed that the larger towns were hot springs of debauchery, laden with pitfalls for young men - and women – who visited without taking care not to fall in. I was a farm girl … I supposed I knew enough to be a farmhand, but it was unlikely anyone would take me on unless they were desperately short of manpower. I had worked hard, like my sisters and stepsisters, yet my brothers and stepbrothers had done far more than us. It was galling, but it was true.

“I want to stay,” I said. I pulled out the pouch and held out the coins. “I can pay …”

Bernard shook his head, a faint hint of pity crossing his face. It struck me, too late, that the Lord and Master of Whitehall had to be rolling in cash. He could have students from the very richest families, the sons of kings and princes and wealthy merchants, all of whom would pay through the nose to have their children taught to use their magic safely. I had no idea how much my coins were actually worth, but there was no way I was wealthy as a single merchant. Even showing him the coins might have been a mistake. He might think I had more.

“You will have to do some work to help maintain the school, like all the other students,” he said. “It’s an important part of your education.”

I nodded, relieved. I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I knew girls who complained about housework, about spending most of their days cooking and cleaning, but they had an easy time of it compared to a farmhand. Whatever they wanted me to do, I’d do it gladly.

He met my eyes. “You also have to take a modified apprenticeship oath,” he added. “If you are caught breaking the oath, afterwards, you will be expelled.”

I felt a hot flash of irritation. Everyone knew that when you gave your word you kept it, even if you discovered, too late, that you’d agreed to do something you shouldn’t. Or was just bigger than you had realised, before you gave your word. If you broke your word, no one would ever trust you again.

“I know,” I said. I’d heard terrible tales about magical oaths - and what they did to oathbreakers. “What is the oath?”

Bernard talked me through it, line by line. It wasn’t – precisely, although I didn’t understand the difference at the time – a magically-binding oath, but I suspected it wouldn’t matter. I stumbled through the words, feeling unsure of myself. It wasn’t an oath of blind obedience to my new teachers, not precisely, but it did oblige me to leave if I felt unable or unwilling to follow their instruction. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I graduated and then left Whitehall, yet I would always have an obligation to protect the school. I wondered, absently, if all the students took the same oath.

“Welcome to Whitehall,” Bernard said, when I had finished stumbling through the oath. It felt as if my life had just changed beyond all recognition. My father and the village were just distant memories, while I was hovering between my old life and the new. “Julianne - my wife - will show you to your room.”

The door opened, on cue. I looked up into the eyes of a powerful woman, wearing a dress that looked very much like a feminine version of Bernard’s outfit. She looked brisk and competent and … there was something in her eyes that told me not to take her lightly. I couldn’t help being reminded of David’s mother, and the cool assessing gaze she had given me before he had asked me to walk out with him. It made me wonder when he had told his mother he intended to ask me, and what she had said in response. And what she had felt after …

“Welcome to Whitehall,” Julianne said. “I hope you’ll enjoy your time here.”

“Good luck,” Bernard said.

I stood and followed Julianne out of the room and through a maze of corridors. She walked briskly, giving me no time to look around. I thought there was a logic to how the building was laid out, but it was impossible to figure it out. I thought I saw things lurking at the corner of my eye, things that vanished when I tried to look at them properly. It made me feel uneasy, as if I was somewhere I didn’t belong. But I did. I told myself, very firmly, that I belonged.

“It would be improper to put you in the student dorms,” Julianne said, flatly. “If we had more female students, we could put you together, but we don’t. I’m going to give you a room near mine, close enough for you to come to me if you have trouble. Is that acceptable?”

I hesitated. Something was bothering her. But what?

“Yes, thank you,” I said. I wasn’t sure quite what to say. “When do I start lessons?”

“Try not to run before you can walk,” Julianne advised. “You will be assessed tomorrow and then sorted into a proper class, depending on how much you know and how much you have to unlearn.”

I nodded, torn between excitement and trepidation. “I can’t wait!”

Julianne smiled, but there was a hard edge to it.

“So,” Master Rupertson said, the following morning. “A little girl thinks she can learn magic?”

I did my best to contain my anger. Master Rupertson’s tone dripped condescension. I had not slept well, despite finally being in a place I could learn magic, and breakfast had been awkward. The students had stared at me with varying levels of interest, while the tutors had largely ignored me. I wasn’t sure if they had doubted my right to be there or if they had simply decided not to show any interest until they knew for sure I was staying. I feared the latter. It was never easy for women to force their way into a purely male sphere.

“Well?” Master Rupertson studied me thoughtfully. “Do you think you can learn magic?”

I stared back at him, as evenly as I could. Master Rupertson was old enough to be my father, with short dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He reminded me far too much of a wealthy farmer I knew, wealthy at least by the standards of my community, who insisted young girls could not be expected to work on the farm, an absurd concept in places where every hand needed to work to keep the farm going. He refused to hire women for manual labour, let alone anything else. Master Rupertson had the excuse, at least, of never meeting any female magicians. I have no idea why the other guy thought what he did. But then, he was wealthy enough to survive a bad harvest or worse winter.

“Yes, Master,” I said. “I can learn.”

“A common delusion,” Master Rupertson said. I couldn’t tell if he meant it was a delusion peculiar to women or one shared by both men and women alike. “Magic requires more than just power. It requires understanding and insight and the ability to focus one’s mind on what one is doing. And persistence. Do you have those traits?”

“Yes, Master,” I said. “I grew up on a farm. I am no stranger to hard work.”

Master Rupertson leaned forward. “Show me your magic.”

His tone irritated me. It wasn’t until much later that I realised that might have been intentional. Thankfully, I had a great deal practice in controlling my anger and irritation and squashing at it before it became a serious problem. Being a young woman meant dealing with a great deal of men who thought you couldn’t count past ten, or couldn’t be relied upon to understand what was really going on, or that it was your parents or husband who made the real decisions. There were some advantages to being a girl in such a community, but being constantly talked down to was not one of them.

I cupped my palm, as I had done for Bernard, and channelled my magic into the air. The room grew warm rapidly, the air shimmering over my bare skin as it heated, the first flickers of flame starting to glimmer into existence. Master Rupertson showed no visible reaction as the fire grew and grew, my will shaping it into a towering fountain of flame. I was weirdly disappointed. I had spent most of my journey practising what little magic I knew and … surely it deserved some response. But he said nothing as the flames started to die.

“You have power,” Master Rupertson said. “But you have very poor control.”

I blinked in surprise. I had summoned fire! I had started a blaze and controlled it. Maybe it wasn’t as grand a feat as those attributed to Lord Whitehall, but still …

“Watch.” Master Rupertson drew a long wooden stick from his belt and held it up in front of me. “Watch and learn.”

I felt the magic sparkling around his stick – his wand - as he cast a spell. It was very different from the magic I had summoned and directed, a perfect piece of directed magic that drew on enough energy to cast a spell … and no more. I sucked in my breath, eyeing Master Rupertson with new respect. I hadn’t thought myself the greatest magician in the world, and I had known I had a great deal to learn, but it was clear I had far more to learn than I had thought. The spell produced a perfect fireball, then snapped out of existence so completely I couldn’t sense any residue tainting the air. My magic, by contrast, could still be felt. I had never felt so clumsy in my entire life.

“Your spell has two problems,” Master Rupertson told me. “The first is that you are shaping the raw power directly, rather than channelling it with your spells. Rather like using your bare hands to dig rather than finding a shovel. You are expending far too much energy to keep the spell in being, which drains you at incredible speed. The second is that your magic is slopping out of your spell, poisoning the air and - more dangerously - yourself. You have a great deal of work to do. Are you willing to work hard, now you know more about how far you have to go?”

I nodded, curtly. Hilde had never taught me anything of the sort. I don’t think she ever knew. Magic might be nothing more than power, but using it effectively required concentration and understanding. It was a fast-flowing river that could be tapped and harnessed, if you knew what you were doing. I had heard stories of communities that had tried to tap rivers without knowing quite what they were doing, stories that had ended in disaster. The old folk often cited them to keep us youngsters from pushing the limits. In hindsight, I wondered if they had had a point.

“Good.” Master Rupertson reached into a drawer and produced a handful of shorter wands. “Let us see which one suits you.”

He passed me the first wand. “Try to channel your magic into the wand.”

I waved the wand carefully. I had never tried to channel my magic into anything. I could sense faint flickers of magic within the wand, a tiny fragment of magic that somehow managed to be more focused than anything I had ever cast on my own. The wood vibrated in my hand, but otherwise nothing happened. Master Rupertson didn’t seem downcast. He simply passed me another wand. This time, my magic flowed into the fragment and triggered the spell. The tip of the wand lit up so brightly I nearly dropped it in shock.

“Interesting,” Master Rupertson observed. “You have an affinity for rowan. I suppose I should not be too surprised.”

I eyed him warily. “How so?”

“The tree is closely afflicted to various goddesses and nature spirits of a feminine bent,” Master Rupertson said. “They are often found close to places of natural power, welcoming female visitors and deterring men. Many feminine cults rowan as part of their rites and rituals. It is known for being closely linked to womanhood.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of it. There were no female-only rites and rituals in my village. The closest thing we had to it was a private gathering for women before the harvest festival began, a gathering that was really little more than a formal blessing on women who had become mothers in the last year and a prayer that rest of us would shortly be blessed with children ourselves. There was certainly no mention of goddesses or the rowan tree. I wondered, idly, if Hilde had ever used rowan in her spells. It had never occurred to me to ask.

“It will not matter as you grow more capable,” Master Rupertson told me. “You will discover that you will be able to use any wand, although some will be more resistant than others. It is apparently unwise to become completely dependent on a single wand, and many magicians swap wands regularly, but we advise students to keep their wand to themselves until they graduate. The risk of magical contamination is too great.”

I frowned, staring at the wand in my hand. “You put a spell in the wand for me?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Master Rupertson said. “The spell in question is designed to shape and channel magic, any magic. You will learn, as you proceed, how to prepare the wand yourself, how to stack up spells and channel magic into them one by one. It will not be easy to put together the spells, at least at first, but with dedication and practice you will likely become a decent spellcaster. You will also learn other arts in the next two years.”

He met my eyes. “Can you read?”

I shook my head, feeling a twinge of embarrassment even though I had never had the opportunity to learn to read. I didn’t know anyone in the village who could, save perhaps Hilde. The peddlers often left messages with us in the certain knowledge we couldn’t read them. It had never occurred to me - I kicked myself for the oversight - that I might need to learn to read to become a magician. If I had known, I might have tried to convince a passing peddler to teach me. The price might have been high, but it would be worth it if I had mastered an art as complex as reading and writing.

“We’ll teach you,” Master Rupertson said. It struck me that I could not be the only student who arrived not knowing how to read. “There are also a number of other skills you will need to master over the next few years.”

He sounded a little more reconciled to having me as a student, even as he bombarded me with questions about just what skills I had mastered on the farm. It was disconcerting to realise - again and again - just how ignorant I was, even though I was far from stupid. It might have been easier if I had studied under a blacksmith, or a carpenter, but it had never dawned on me that such skills might be useful. Even if they had, the village craftsmen would hardly take me as an apprentice. I knew how to work the farm, and how to cook and clean and sew, but little else. The sewing might come in handy, Master Rupertson told me. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or just trying to comfort me.

“There is one other thing you need to understand,” Master Rupertson told me bluntly. “You will not receive any special treatment. You will be treated the same as any other student, and held to the same standards. You will perform chores to help the community, you will be expected to provide assistance to your masters at all hours, and you will be whipped if you misbehave or break the rules. There will be no consideration given to your sex, no suggestion that you are somehow exempt from student duties and obligations. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I had worked in the fields alongside the boys. I had done my fair share of mischief before my body had started to blossom and the boys had started to look at me with interest. I hadn’t understood, at the time, why I and my sisters had to sleep apart from the boys, sleeping in a cage rather than a room. It had only been a couple of years ago that I had come to understand why. “I don’t expect any special treatment.”

Master Rupertson looked unimpressed, then launched into a long lecture punctuated by demonstrations of magic spells. It managed, somehow, to be both simple and complex. The spells he showed me, as I understood it, were the building blocks of other spells, together piece by piece to cast a much more complex piece of magic. I couldn’t help thinking of it as detailed instructions, the sort of thing a farmer might give a young man who didn’t have much between his ears. I knew a couple of boys who weren’t stupid, not precisely, but were slow and prone to misunderstanding instructions if they weren’t very clear. The magic, Master Rupertson explained, was very prone to going in directions the caster didn’t expect. It was vitally important to ensure the power was channelled in the right direction.

“Like a river,” I said. “We don’t want it to break its banks.”

“Crude, but effectively accurate,” Master Rupertson told me. A river bursting its banks can be extremely dangerous for the surrounding landscape. Your magic bursting free can be extremely dangerous for everyone around you.

He gave me no rest as he drilled me in channelling my magic, teaching me exercises to direct the power in the right direction. It wasn’t just direction that was important, I discovered; it was controlling precisely how much power I summoned and directed, using no more than the bare minimum required to work the spell. It was not remotely easy. I could calculate how much magic I needed for a single spell, or a single building block, but working out how much was required for a spell built out of building blocks was much harder. My stomach growled angrily as my latest spell fell apart, the magic shattering into fragments of raw power that vanished into the ether. I hadn’t felt so bad during harvest, when everyone - from the youngest to the oldest - worked from dawn till dusk.

“You will have plenty of time to practice,” Master Rupertson told me. He made a gesture with one hand. I sensed the spell, but it was gone before I had a chance to work out what it did. “You’ll be included in the basic classes for spellcasting, reading and writing, and a number of other arts. You are not expected to know everything from the start, but your teachers will not be impressed if you do not make progress. If you don’t understand what you’re being told, ask.”

Someone knocked on the door, hard, and then opened it. I looked up to see a young man into the room. He looked … odd. He had short blond hair, blue eyes and an unusually pale face struck me as unnatural. It took me a moment to realise there were no pockmarks, no traces of a life spent in the fields or learning a trade. His outfit was nothing more than a shirt and trousers, but they were decidedly new. My clothes were ancient, patched up and passed down so often it was hard to determine if there was anything of the original outfit still there. I couldn’t help thinking he looked a little unhealthy. His appearance certainly didn’t suggest a man used to manual labour.

“Cemburu,” Master Rupertson said. “This is Janis, our new student. Take her to the dining hall and make sure she eats, then show her back to her room.”

Cemburu stared at me. I had had young men look at me with interest, and older folk eyeing me and then muttering about just what my mother might have been doing nine months before I was born, but it was the first time anyone had looked at me as if I were something they had scraped off their shoe. His eyes swept over my face and dropped to my chest, then rose again. I felt a twinge of discomfort. There was nothing unnatural in men being interested in women - like all farmers, I had known the facts of life from a very early age - but this felt different. It felt wrong.

“This way,” Cemburu said. He had a snooty voice that grated on me. The headman’s wife had put on a similar tone, years ago, only to discard it when everyone laughed at her. I couldn’t help thinking Cemburu took it seriously. “Come with me.”

I stood, nodded politely to my tutor, and followed Cemburu through the door. He said nothing as he walked through another maze of corridors, walking so quickly it felt he was desperate to get rid of me as quickly as possible, as if there was something about me that repelled him. I made a mental note to explore the school as quickly as possible, just so I wouldn’t have to rely on anyone to show me around, then studied his back. He wasn’t unhealthy, as far as I could tell, but he wasn’t anything like as muscular as my brothers or father. He would not last long on the farm.

He stopped outside a door and turned to face me. “Why do you get a room? A private room?”

I tried to hide my surprise. His tone might be snooty, but I had seen the look on his face before. It was the look of a man who had been denied something he wanted, then found himself forced to watch as someone else got the thing he wanted, without even asking for it. A private room? I had grown up on a farm. I might have slept in a cage, but I had still shared a chamber with my brothers. I wouldn’t have been that afraid of sleeping in a dorm with male students.

“I didn’t ask for it,” I said. I should probably have been more diplomatic, but I didn’t feel diplomatic. “They just gave it to me.”

“They just gave it to you,” Cemburu repeated. He couldn’t have been more incredulous if I have claimed to be the direct descendant of a god and goddess. “How much special treatment do you think they’re going to give you because of those?”

He jabbed a finger at my breasts. I felt a hot flash of embarrassment, rapidly followed by anger. I have had more reason than most to resent my appearance, but still … I had grown up on a farm. I wasn’t ashamed of my body. Or my sex, even though it brought restrictions as well as advantages. No one back home would challenge me to a bare-knuckle fist fight.

“Get this,” Cemburu said. “I will not be giving you any special treatment at all!”

“That’s good,” I snapped back. “I never asked for it!”

If any of my tutors were giving me special treatment, I decided over the next few weeks, it was impossible to tell. They worked me hard. They worked us all hard. We woke in the morning and had breakfast, then studied until lunch, after which we returned to the classrooms or the training grounds for more studies and practice. The evenings were spent doing chores, some carrying buckets of water or firewood around the castle to cleaning up in the kitchen and even helping to prepare food. I didn’t resent it, certainly not as much as the other students. Cemburu and his cronies, Jahat and Irihati, spent more time grumbling than they did working. I was very tempted to point out that if they stopped moaning and actually did the work they’d be done well before nightfall. They wouldn’t have to go straight to bed after their chores.

I kept that opinion to myself, as the weeks turned into months. It wasn’t easy being the first female student. The men didn’t seem to know what to make of me. Some tried to flirt, others seemed to expect me to know who they were and why I should hop into bed with them, still others paid as little attention to me as possible. Cemburu wasn’t the only one, I discovered all too quickly, who resented the fact I had been given a private room. Whitehall appeared to be trying to treat all of its students as relative equals, and even though it was clear I needed some privacy no one seemed very happy about it. The dorms were not exactly cramped, I had been assured, but there was still very little privacy. I couldn’t help feeling they had a point. And yet …

It was disconcerting, I had to admit, to realise just how ignorant I was. There were factions amongst the students, and even amongst tutors who were supposed to be old enough to know better, factions that made little sense to me. I knew almost nothing of the world outside my village, or the world surrounding my new home, and it was hard to work out what was really going on when Cemburu clashed with another student. Cemburu himself was an aristocrat, I discovered, but other students were commoners like myself or even people of no clear origin. The aristocratic students sought everything should come to them by virtue of their name; the commoners, obviously, thought otherwise. And the aristocrats had factions of their own … I didn’t even pretend to understand them, let alone the questions of rank and hierarchy that preoccupied my fellow students. I had hoped for friends, or at least someone I could talk to on equal terms, but my combination of birth and sex made it impossible. It was deeply frustrating. What was I supposed to do about it?

The classes were, despite Cemburu’s constant barbs and jibes at my expense, extremely interesting, although the teachers constantly made it clear that I had a great deal to learn. We studied history, from the first recorded traces of magic to the Whitehall Commune and the decision to turn the castle into a school. Lord Whitehall had clearly been a great man as well as a great magician, although no one was entirely clear on what had happened to him. His old companions had largely passed on or dispersed, leaving Bernard in charge of the school. There were whispered rumours that Master Wolfe haunted the corridors, offering help and advice to students in exchange for their blood, but I was fairly sure they were just cautionary tales to keep students in the dorms after hours. It wasn’t as if we lived in a country village, where no one would willingly go outside after dark - and if they did, they would be taking their lives in their hands. I couldn’t help thinking, as I listened to the lectures, that was something missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Cemburu poured scorn on me the moment I tried to ask. He, apparently, had been taught everything he needed to know from a very early age.

The practical classes were more interesting, and relevant. I had never tried to write anything, even my own name, before I was given a slate and taught the basics. It was incredibly complicated to sound out the words, let alone write them for myself. I wasn’t convinced I needed to learn, if only because there were few books in the school, but my teachers gave me no choice. I practised extensively, trying to master the basics of reading and writing, even though I was sure it would take me years to match - if not surpass - Cemburu and his peers. They were not remotely helpful. The students were supposed to assist each other, but Cemburu gave me a line of writing to copy that was a direct insult to the tutor. He didn’t see the funny side. I had never been so tempted to rat someone out as I had been at that moment. The only thing that saved me from a whipping was the teacher’s awareness that I could not have written the line myself. And yet …

It was the raw magic classes that really interested me. Master Rupertson and Master Ashlord drilled us repeatedly in spellwork, teaching us how to put together the building blocks to cast complex spells. It was as frustrating and finicky as always, but I couldn’t help feeling that I was making progress with every spell I successfully cast. I had to work hard to figure out how the variables went together - the magic did not have a mind of its own, I was assured, although I didn’t really believe it - and then make sure there were no loopholes in the spell before embedding the spells into the wand. It wasn’t easy to do that either. Wood channelled magic very well, certainly compared to other materials, but embedded charms rarely lingered. Master Rupertson had prepared the wand he’d given me in advance. I did well - I knew I was doing well - and yet I was all too aware of how much else I had to learn.

“There will always be something to learn,” Julianne told me. She was the closest thing Whitehall had to a witchcraft tutor, although very few students took her classes. I wasn’t sure if they were reluctant to take instruction from a woman or felt witchcraft was not a proper subject of study for male magicians. “We are constantly pushing the limits of what we can do, learning more and more as we go along. You will make discoveries yourself as you grow older, discoveries that will be passed down and used as the base for later discoveries.”

I nodded, thoughtfully. Julianne had listened carefully as I told her what I had learnt from Hilde, then taught me some things of her own in return. I couldn’t help wondering how she had learnt the basics of witchcraft - hedge witches rarely shared their secrets with anyone outside their circle - let alone the magic she used freely. I was convinced there was a secret there, something kept from me and everyone else. Cemburu insisted that no woman could learn magic properly, certainly not in a classroom, but there were stories of another female magician who had helped to found the school. I didn’t know how seriously to take them. Julianne had learnt from her father and then her husband. But who had taught the mystery sorceress? Cemburu insisted she was nothing more than a myth spread to legitimise the idea of women learning magic. I hated to think he might be right.

“I wish I knew more,” I admitted. “How long does it take to get out of the basic classes?”

“As long as it takes.” Julianne gave me a faint smile. “The students have to master the basics before they can proceed. Even something as simple as brewing potions” - she indicated cauldrons at the back of the room - “relies upon the student having precise control over their powers. If they do not, they will either turn the potion into sludge or kill themselves - and if they are very unlucky, they will kill everyone nearby as well.”

I shivered. I was well aware that life could be dangerous, that a man could be crippled or killed quite by accident, or a woman - like my mother - could die in childbirth, but it was hard to gauge just how dangerous any given piece of magic actually was. Some of the simplest spells could be very dangerous if cast with malicious or deadly intent, or even without sufficient forethought. Master Ashlord had demonstrated how easily a levitation spell could get someone killed by launching an apple into the air and smashing it into the ceiling. I had taken note. The magic coursing through me, growing stronger and more controlled with every passing day, could be lethal if I made a single mistake.

The thought haunted me as I continued my lessons. I had always been strong, but nowhere near as strong as my father or brothers. The idea I could seriously hurt someone had been unthinkable until David and then … I had used magic to do it. I wasn’t even sure what had happened. I felt reluctant to discuss it with Julianne, let alone the other teachers. Julianne … I liked her, really I did, but there was something about her that made it difficult to confide in her. The other tutors were all male. I couldn’t be alone with them without Cemburu starting rumours. He was very lucky that the teachers hadn’t heard the handful of rumours he had spread.

“There’s no reason for you to be here,” he said, time and time again. I was tempted to ask when he would come up with some new material. Jokes lose their humour with every repetition and insults lose their sting. “Why do you even bother?”

His cronies tittered on cue. I rolled my eyes and ignored them as Master Falladine entered the classroom and started to demonstrate how spells, even very simple spells, could be used in combat. My older classmates - some were old enough to be my father - leaned forward with interest. A couple of them, I was sure, had served in an army; they certainly asked questions that suggested they had genuine experience, unlike the aristocrats who were granted rank as their birthright. Or so I thought. My father and brothers had kept me and my sisters well away from any passing soldiers, on the rare occasions they marched through the village. Much of what I knew came from horror stories of wars and conflicts so far away they might as well be in fantasy lands. I didn’t want to be involved.

“You must always be prepared to fight,” Master Falladine told us. He was the battle magic teacher, the only man I had ever met who looked more muscular than my father. His outfit was tight enough to show off his physique, while still allowing him to move easily. He carried a sword as well as a pair of wands, pointing out to Cemburu - when he asked - that magic wasn’t always reliable in combat, while a sword usually was. “You will never know when threats will raise their heads, or when you will have to fight for your life.”

Cemburu stuck up his hand. “Sir,” he said. “Who would fight a magician?”

“There is no shortage of people who think they can fight and kill a magician,” Master Falladine said, bluntly. “The anarchy may be in the past, but there is no shortage of lawless territory or men seeking to profit from the cares. Whitehall itself may be attacked at any moment. There are kings and noblemen out there who resent our predominance and our willingness to teach magic to everyone” – I could feel eyes burning into my back – “and they may sponsor further attacks on us, if they scent weakness.”

I tried not to shudder as Master Falladine continued to demonstrate spells, in-between lecturing as on the importance of physical exercise and combat training. I had never considered that the school might not be popular with everyone, although in hindsight it was obvious. Common-born magicians - and witches – threatened to upend the social order. I wasn’t sure if the story about Hilde turning a young nobleman into a frog and telling him that he would have to get a woman to willingly kiss him if he wanted to be turned back to a man, was true, but it was hard to control magicians. I could easily imagine the local nobility trying to maintain a monopoly on magical education and trying to stamp out commoner magic.

“I expect you all to practice these spells,” Master Falladine finished. “I want you all perfect by the end of the week. If you can cast them on cue, we will move on to embedding spells within bladed weapons and using them to enhance our prowess; if not …”

He let the unspoken threat hang in the air for a long moment, then smiled. “Janis, you’re on cleaning duty. The rest of you can go.”

I nodded as I got to work. As chores went, clearing the classroom was one of the easier tasks we were set. I really didn’t have to do much beyond picking up the states and wiping them, straightening the chairs and a handful of other minor tasks. Master Falladine and the rest of the class filed out, leaving me alone. I wondered, idly, where Master Falladine went for lunch. I had never seen him in the dining hall, not at lunch time. Perhaps he ate with his wife and family.… if he had a family. I didn’t know. We were not encouraged to socialise with our teachers outside the classroom. It would be difficult, I suspected, if Bernard and Julianne had a child. Did they? I didn’t know.

The air shifted behind me, a moment before I felt a hard pinch on my arse. I jumped and spun around, fists raised. It wasn’t uncommon for boys to try to kiss girls back home, but actually touching her rear? I was not surprised to see Cemburu standing by the door, flanked by his two goons, leering at me. He’d pinched me with magic. Anger shot through me. Father had walloped my bottom more than once, as I’d grown up, but how dare Cemburu touch me that way? How dare he?

Cemburu smirked and returned his wand to his sleeve. “Master Falladine did tell us to practice our spells.”

I gaped at him. Master Falladine had taught us the pinching spell, but he had never told us to practice or each other … and certainly not like that. “You dare …?”

His leer grew worse. “Of course I dare,” he said, fumbling with his belt. “You’re just a little commoner slut who needs to be put in her place, on her knees.”

For a moment, I just stared. Did he really think I would …? No village boy would ever dream of doing such a thing. Even if he managed to have his way with me, my father and brothers would pound him into bloody paste and no one would get in their way. They might even help them. It was one thing for a girl to open her legs willingly, even outside wedlock, but quite another for her to be forced. Her rapist would be lucky to survive long enough to be kicked out of the village. And yet …

Cemburu was an aristocrat. He thought himself my superior. Anywhere else, he would be right. I had heard the stories. No one would care about a commoner who was raped by a nobleman. They’d say you was lucky to be favoured with his attentions.

He started to draw his wand. I darted forward and punched his jaw, hard. Cemburu staggered backwards and collapsed, hitting the floor hard enough to surprise even me. My brothers would have shrugged off the blow, as would David and the other village lads. I would have hurt myself worse than I hurt them. But Cemburu … I wondered, for a moment, if I had broken his jaw. It was quite possible.

A spell struck me. I realise my mistake too late. Jahat or Irihati had hexed me. My entire body went limp. I fell to the floor, unable to move a single voluntary muscle. I could barely see anything as I lay helpless, all too aware I was suddenly at their mercy. If they wanted to rape me, they could … I cursed my decision to aim for the jaw instead of the throat. I could have killed Cemburu before he could lay a hand on me, maybe even taken down Jahat or Irihati. If nothing else, I would have made them pay …

“And just what,” Master Falladine said coldly, “is going on here?”

I flushed, drenching myself in shame. I had lost without even knowing I was in a fight. I should have …

“Well, sir,” Cemburu managed. His voice was no longer so snooty. I was impressed he could talk at all. “We were just practising our magic and …”

“Really.” Master Falladine sounded utterly unimpressed. “Go to my office and prepare yourself.”

The three boys started to protest in unison, only to be cut off by Master Falladine. “Go. Now.”

I groaned, inwardly, as Master Falladine closed the door, giving me some privacy to recover. The spell was slowly wearing off, but … I felt unable to think. The boys would blame me, of course, and unless they were expelled … I swallowed hard. They weren’t going to be expelled. Master Falladine would make their bottoms wish they had never been born, I was sure, but it wouldn’t be enough. They had stripped my confidence from me, called my very presence at the school into question, and … I was sure it was just a matter of time before they had everyone convinced I had been begging for it. For a moment, I wanted to run …

And then cold determination overwhelmed me.

I was going to make them pay for what they had done.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect, over the next two days, but no one said anything about the incident. Nothing. Nothing at all. Cemburu and his cronies sat uncomfortably, and glared at me whenever they could, but they did nothing. I knew it wouldn’t last. Cemburu might be very different from the boys in the village, and he had certainly underestimated me, but at base they were the same. It was just a matter of time before he did something to strike at me, something to convince himself that I hadn’t beaten him with a single punch. His pride wouldn’t allow anything else.

The rest of the class seemed determined to stay out of it as much as possible. I wasn’t too surprised. They didn’t know who was going to come out ahead, or if I was even going to stay, and I suspected some of them were reluctant to take sides against their male peers. Men respect allies, not traitors, even when the allies are allied to a complete idiot who is likely to bring everyone else down with him. It was rare for someone, back home, to betray their friends or fellow villagers. Even if they were in the right, they would be in the wrong.

I stayed behind, after class, to talk to Master Falladine. It was nerve wracking. I had no idea what he thought of the whole affair. Did he see me as a weak woman, very lucky to escape being raped or molested, or did he see me as a student? Still a student? The thought made me grind my teeth in frustration. Back home, woman had a certain degree of protection, but that protection came at the expense of subordinating themselves to their male protectors, their fathers or brothers or husbands. Here … if I needed protection, I would look weak and unworthy of respect. And that I could not allow.

“Janis,” Master Falladine said. “What can I do for you?”

I was tempted to jump around the issue, but I suspected that would just irritate him. “I need to learn more combat magic,” I said. “Will you teach me?”

Master Falladine studied me for a long moment. It struck me, suddenly, that I had no idea how the rest of the tutors felt about the whole affair either. Were they on my side? Or his? I didn’t know anything about Cemburu’s origins, or where he came from. I was fairly sure he was an aristocrat, and clearly not one used to physical exertion, but otherwise … I just didn’t know. I didn’t know, either, how well I was doing compared to the other students. Master Falladine might consider me worthy of extra tuition, or he might not. It wasn’t as if I had any way to pay him, except … I tried not to think about it. I wasn’t going to give anyone my body in payment, even for private lessons. It was unthinkable.

“And how,” Master Falladine said, “do you propose to pay for these lessons?”

I swallowed. Was he implying …? Could he read my mind? I had been thinking about payment and yet … if he could, wouldn’t he know I have no intention of trading sex for anything? If I did that, no one would ever respect me again. Cemburu would call me a whore and he would be right. But what else did I have?

“You need an assistant,” I said. Master Falladine didn’t have a personal apprentice or even a servant, someone to clean up classroom, organise lesson plans and everything else a tutor normally had to handle himself. I didn’t know why - some of the other teachers had apprentices or assistants of their own - but it was all I had to offer. “Give me the extra lessons and I will be your assistant.”

“I see.” Master Falladine said nothing for a long moment, just long enough to make me sweat. “And why do you want to learn?”

I felt a hot flash of anger. Didn’t he know why I wanted to learn? He’d seen me on the floor, helpless, and at the mercy of a young man who thought me nothing more than a servant. Or a serf. Or a slave. The thought powered my rage. I didn’t know how far Cemburu would have gone, if he hadn’t been interrupted, but I didn’t want to believe he would have stopped short of actually raping me. If Master Falladine hadn’t walked in, I could have had my virginity stolen by a monstrous …

“Two days ago, I was nearly raped,” I growled. It was hard, almost impossible, to keep my voice steady. “I want to make sure it can never happen again. And that means I have to learn how to defend myself.”

“Cemburu does not have the nerve to rape anyone,” Master Falladine said, bluntly. If he was shocked at my choice of words, words aristocratic woman were not supposed to know existed, he didn’t show it. “I doubt it would have gone much further.”

His casual dismissal of the threat to my virginity and my life angered me further. “I still need to know how to defend myself,” I said. “I can’t count on anyone to protect me.”

“Unfortunately, you’re probably correct,” Master Falladine stated. His eyes bored into mine. “Understand this. First, I will push you hard and I will show no patience whatsoever if you are unable to keep up; second, I will be expecting you to assist me after you master enough skills to be an effective assistant. Right now, you don’t have enough practical magic to be helpful.”

I nodded, torn between relief and fear. Lessons had been hard enough in class, with the tutor splitting his attention between twenty students, but if I had his sole attention … he whipped out his wand, faster than I could blink, and cast a spell. My body froze, my muscles locking up and then cramping painfully. I struggled to free myself, but I could do nothing. Master Falladine looked me up and down, then undid the spell. I collapsed in a heap on the ground. The fall was so violent that I honestly feared he’d somehow vanished my bones. My entire body felt as if it had turned to liquid.

“Your reflexes need work,” Master Falladine said, as I staggered back to my feet. “You also need to master other techniques, such as wandless casting. Are you still willing to learn?”

I nodded. If Master Falladine could do that to me, it was only a matter of time until Cemburu could too. I didn’t know if he would have the idea of getting a tutor of his own, but I was sure he had something to trade if he wanted one. My legs felt wobbly, a grim reminder of just how helpless I had been. I needed to learn to defend myself before it was too late.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m willing.”

“Very good,” Master Falladine said. “Make sure you eat as much as possible at dinnertime, then report to my office at sunset. We will begin at once.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, again. I would need to sneak to the office - I had no doubt that nasty rumours would start the moment Cemburu realised where I was going - but that wouldn’t be hard. I had no pressing engagements after dinner. The very thought was absurd. I had no friends at school and I wouldn’t ever, unless I proved myself. “I’ll be there.”

And I was. Master Falladine, true to his word, drilled me thoroughly in defensive magic, teaching me dozens of little tricks to get the best out of my growing powers and how to speed up my reactions when I was under threat. He showed me how to cast shields, then hit them with charms and curses to shatter them, then taught me how to discard a breaking shield or even turn it into a weapon. I had never considered the advantages of turning fragments of magic into projectiles, but it was clear it worked very well. The wave of sharp-edged magic could cut through almost anything.

“Don’t try to block a spell if you can evade it,” Master Falladine instructed, after hitting me with a charm that shattered my shield and threw me back against the wall. “Getting into a trial of strength with a stronger magician is a losing game. He will batter you down with naked force and then do whatever he wants to you.”

I glowered. “Is Cemburu really that strong?”

Master Falladine shot me a sarcastic look. “Do you think he’ll be your only challenger?”

I scowled as I wiped the sweat from my forehead. He was right. I had seen advanced students joshing each other for position and even junior magicians challenging their seniors. I had even heard a rumour that a magician had come to Whitehall to challenge Bernard for the school, although nothing seemed to have come of it. Magicians liked testing themselves against their peers, even at the cost of their lives or reputations. Cemburu might be a pain, but he was also very low in the hierarchy. My next challenger might prove a tougher case.

You have to beat the first challenger first, I thought. It was rare for older students to try to put the younger ones in their place, but if I beat Cemburu they might try to put me in mine. Worry about next challenger after that.

Master Falladine cast another spell at me. I dodged, raised my wand and tossed a spell back. The tutor nodded approvingly and then cast a second spell. My fingers twitched, dropping the wand. I grabbed for it, too late. His third spell sent me tumbling to the ground.

“You have to work on wandless casting,” Master Falladine said, bluntly. “If you succeed, you’ll be able to give him one hell of a surprise.”

It was hard for me to tell if I was getting any better, even as I mastered the art of casting spells so quickly I barely had to think about it. The lessons took their toll. He drilled me for two hours, then sent me back to bed; I collapsed into the sheets and then woke hungry, feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all, for morning lessons. I was surprised the other tutors didn’t thrash me for being inattentive in their classes. Perhaps Master Falladine had had a quiet word with them. Or perhaps not. It was difficult to tell what he really thought about me, and the lessons he was giving me. There were times when he was almost fatherly and times when it seemed he couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I suspected - I hoped - he was pushing me in a bid to force me to stretch my magic further than ever before.

The denouement came faster than I had expected. I had nearly fall asleep in Master Sake’s classroom, something that would normally guarantee me a thrashing with his belt. It was no idle threat. I had seen him thrash a student - a male student - for mouthing off and falling asleep in class was great deal worse. And yet he merely glared at me.

“Get more sleep,” he advised sarcastically. I was torn between relief and irritation. The boys already resented me. They’d resent me more if I got away with falling asleep in class. “What have you been doing after hours?”

“She’s been spreading for Master Falladine,” Cemburu said, nastily. “She hasn’t been sleeping with him. She’s been doing something else.”

The classroom went deathly silent. Even Cemburu’s cronies, who I would have expected to titter and laugh at their master’s joke, kept their mouths shut. It was so quiet I thought someone had cast a silencing spell, so quiet someone could hear a pin drop. I had no idea how many people had noticed I had been going to Master Falladine’s office after hours, but it was clear rumours had been bubbling for days, perhaps weeks, before Cemburu brought them into the open. And yet … I wondered, suddenly, just how bad the rumours would be for Master Falladine. If the staff thought he was sleeping with one of his students …

And until recently, that wasn’t even a possibility, I thought. But now …

I turned to face Cemburu. “You are a lying little shit.”

Cemburu smirked at me. “You are spreading for him,” he said. “Do you deny it?”

“I challenge you to a duel,” I said. I had the brief satisfaction of seeing a flicker of uncertainty cross his face before the smirk returned. “The gods will defend the right.”

“I could not possibly be such an unmanly buffoon as to accept a challenge from a … lady,” Cemburu said. The conceit in his voice made me want to hit him again. I couldn’t tell if he really meant it or if he was trying to evade the challenge. “As a man of honour …”

“As a man of honour, you must either accept the challenge or leave the school,” Master Sake said, coldly. “Janis is a fellow student. She has every right to be outraged at your ungentlemanly behaviour and demand satisfaction. So too does Master Falladine. If you refuse the challenge …”

I could practically see the sudden panic in Cemburu’s eyes. If he declined my challenge, it would be taken as an admission he was lying and he would probably be expelled. There was no way he could back down and apologise, not to a girl. It would secure my position at the cost of his own. His only way out was to win … and even then, no one would take it quite seriously because he had beaten by a girl. I smirked back at him. It pushed him over the edge.

“Tomorrow evening,” he said. “I trust you can make the arrangements?”

“The staff will see to it,” Master Sake said. It wasn’t the first honour duel the school had seen. “Until then, the two of you will be isolated from the rest of school. I suggest you spend the time practising.”

He summoned two older students, who escorted us to our rooms. I guessed Cemburu was pleased at finally getting a room of his own, even though it probably wouldn’t last. My thoughts churned as I lay down on the bed, wondering if I had done the right thing. I might win a challenge and yet … people would always talk. I knew from experience that nothing, not even a brutal beating, could stop people gossiping. The old men and women back home were still talking about events that had happened when my father was a lad, involving people who passed away before my mother had brought me into the world. I hoped Master Falladine wouldn’t be smeared, afterwards. But I feared otherwise.

The thought haunted me as I slept, ate my breakfast, then practised my moves until the evening, when Master Falladine arrived to escort me to the hall. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I walked down and into the chamber, catching sight of Cemburu on the other side of the room. Bernard spoke briefly to the pair of us, giving Cemburu a chance to retract his statement – his lie and me a chance to retract my challenge, then drew a circle on the floor and invited us to enter. Cemburu smirked at me as Bernard counted down, then raised his wand and cast the first spell. He’d clearly been practising. I felt a flicker of envy. He had friends who could help him master his magic.

But I had a proper teacher, I reminded myself. And he taught me well.

We traded spell after spell for what felt like hours. I kicked myself, mentally, for not eating as much as I should before being escorted to the hall. I hadn’t been able to eat properly and yet I was going to pay for it now. Cemburu was a challenging opponent, not least because it was very difficult to determine what he would do. Master Falladine was an experienced magician who would always go for the knockout blow, whereas Cemburu lacked his experience and often missed opportunities to win. And yet, as we traded spells, I felt myself getting worn down. I could see sweat on his forehead. It was turning into an endurance contest and I doubted I could win.

I gritted my teeth and hold a set of charms at him, using them to cover a spell that should have disarmed him. It wouldn’t guarantee victory, but it would cripple him long enough for me to land the final blow. Instead, he jumped to one side, dodging the spells I aimed and tossing back a spell of his own. It struck me hard, knocking me over and sending my wand flying into the distance. Cemburu laughed - the crowd hooted - and advanced threateningly, dragging out the moment of victory as long as he could. I shaped a spell in my mind – wandless casting finally making a degree of sense - and blasted him as he loomed over me. Cemburu stumbled backwards and collapsed as I staggered to my feet. The urge to just kick him in the groin was overpowering, but I resisted. It would be counted as cheating. Instead, I picked up his wand and stunned him. The crowd went wild.

“Congratulations on your victory,” Bernard said. He sounded genuinely pleased. His gamble of allowing me to study at the school had paid off. After this, I was sure, no one would question my right to be a student. “We will feast in your honour.”

Master Falladine picked up my wand and held it out to me as another tutor, one I didn’t recognise, levitated Cemburu out of the hall. “You did well,” he said, “but don’t get overconfident. The next challenger will be a great deal harder.”

I nodded in understanding. I had passed through the first hurdle, but there were more.

A lot more.

The next few weeks were the happiest of my life.

It felt as if everyone wanted to be my friend. Or my adviser. Or even friendly rival. My peers finally accepted me as one of them, while the upper students stopped pretending I didn’t exist when they saw me. This wasn’t wholly a good thing. I had previously been spared the older students using me as a servant, unlike my peers, but now they ordered me around as much as the rest. The other students grumbled about being used for labour, yet I didn’t really mind. It was proof I had been accepted, and it was also a great deal easier than life on the farm. I didn’t point that out to them. I didn’t want them thinking about harder tasks for me and my peers.

I had never really had anyone to talk to about magic, save for Hilde, and much of her advice had been confusing or contradictory. Now, I had students from a range of backgrounds who could tell me everything I needed to know and discuss magical theories with me. I practised my spells with the boys, who seem to have decided I was an honorary boy rather than a girl. Master Falladine told me, when I pointed that out, that the price for being one of the boys was actually being one of the boys. If I acted like a boy, and held my head high like a boy, they would treat me as a boy. I wasn’t sure how well that would work, but I had to admit the boys were paying much less attention to my body and more to my magic and mind. It was … different.

They also told me a great many things I had barely realised mattered. To the north, the Kingdom of Alluvia was slowly taking shape and sending students to Whitehall; to the south, several smaller kingdoms were slowly being absorbed into bigger kingdoms that would eventually be a match for Alluvia and the barely-known kingdoms further north. One student had travelled with his father, before going to Whitehall, and he told me about people far to the east who looked a little like me. It was strange to think about the man who had been my biological father, although I told myself - quite firmly - that my real father was the man who had accepted me as his own and raised me until I was old enough to decide my own path. The idea of travelling to see the east was attractive, but I doubted I would ever get the chance to go. Magic was just so fascinating. I could never give it up. And besides, I had no idea if my biological father had ever known he had sired a child.

And one of the other things they taught me left me feeling oddly sympathetic to Cemburu.

He was, apparently, a bastard. This was no surprise to me, for the obvious reason, but apparently he was a real bastard. He was not the son of a nobleman, born out of wedlock; he was the son of a noble woman. A nobleman could pretend his son wasn’t his, and pay for the mother to bring the child up, but a noblewoman could not hide behind a polite veneer of secrecy. Cemburu had been lucky to be acknowledged by his mother’s family, I was told, and it had cost her dearly. There was no prospect, now, of a good match. I couldn’t help thinking the nobility were crazy. But then, it was more important for them to ensure their children were actually theirs. It made me grateful, once again, for my father’s willingness to treat me as his own.

And I would have felt sorrier for him if he hadn’t been such a pain.

He returned to class two days after the duel, to find himself a pariah. No one had any time for a loser, not even his former cronies. They shut him out, refusing to have anything to do with him. Cemburu tried to tell everyone that I had cheated, that I had lured him into a trap, but no one believed him. Ironically, I discovered, it would have impressed people if I had. There was nothing morally wrong about setting a trap, or tricking one’s opponent into making a deadly mistake. I haven’t planned it that way, and if Cemburu hadn’t stopped to gloat he would likely have won, but it didn’t matter. I was up and he was down and that was all that mattered to our peers. The nasty part of my mind hoped he was enjoying being right at the bottom of the hierarchy. It was a taste of what he had doled out to me.

The teachers didn’t give us a break. They kept us practising magic from dawn to dusk, as well as practical skills such as swordfighting and harvesting potion ingredients from the herb gardens and wild animals. It made me smile to meet a unicorn and convince it to let us take some of its hairs, not least because unicorns could only be approached by maidens. It was clear proof I was still a virgin, embarrassing Cemburu still further. He shut up after that, save for the occasional snide remark about me still having a private room. I told him that that would change the moment another female student arrived. Who knew? One might arrive tomorrow. I couldn’t be the only girl who wanted to study magic, could I?

It pushed me to my limits and beyond. It was hard to keep up with my training as I dug further and further into advanced magic. Master Falladine was surprisingly understanding as I had to go straight to bed some nights, rather than practising with him, but I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. I had promised I would be his assistant when the time came and not keeping that promise didn’t sit well with me. I knew I hadn’t developed the skills, not yet, but still … it bugged me. I felt embarrassed at the failure to be the person he needed. But what choice did I have?

Spending more time with my fellow students meant going on walks with them, either in the mountains or down to the nearby town. I decided fairly quickly I didn’t like the town and I was glad - very glad - I hadn’t gone there. It was bigger than the village, bigger than the nearest town, big enough for everyone to be strangers to everyone else. The pubs and shops and brothels felt weirdly disconnected from each other, even as they served the nearby school. I suspected they were hoping the school would protect them, when the kingdom tried to take control of the town. It was just a matter of time. The town had something to lose too.

Back home, we knew how to hide crops from taxmen, I thought. The kingdom’s inspectors were easy to fool. Most of them knew nothing about farming and we had no trouble hiding our produce in plain sight. Here, it might be a little harder.

I didn’t really worry about it. The first set of exams were coming up and I needed to practice. And practice. And practice some more. The teachers had made it clear that if we failed the exams we would be going back to the start, remaining as junior students even as the rest of us went up a level. Cemburu got mocked, harshly, by students who expected him to fail, pointing out they would soon have the authority to make him fetch and carry for them. I didn’t join in. I didn’t like Cemburu, for obvious reasons, but I knew better than to count my chickens before they had hatched. I knew how easy it was to lose a crop before you could harvest, how easy it was to lose everything in a single catastrophic moment. I hoped I would pass, but I couldn’t count on it. No one could.

But at least I can practice with the others, I thought. It felt good to test my spells against my peers. None of them took me lightly any longer. What happens to those who can’t?

The thought bothered me slightly, as exams neared. I had grown up in a community where helping people who needed it was highly praised. It was self interest as much as anything else. You never knew when you might be knocked down, when you might need help yourself, and helping people who had been knocked down to get back on their feet incentivised them to help you when you needed it. Part of me thought I should reach out to Cemburu and offer assistance; the rest of me thought it was pointless to try. Cemburu was not capable of understanding the importance of helping others, even now. His peers were certainly not trying to build him up again. To them, education was a zero-sum game. For someone to win, everyone else had to lose.

I lost track of what was going on as exams started in earnest. There were no written essays, much to my relief, although the tutors interrogated us thoroughly about why we had cast the spells we had to solve the problems they posed. It was difficult, almost impossible, not to resent the interrogation as they tossed more and more questions at us, each one leading to further questions. I have never been subjected to anything like it in my entire life … and I wasn’t even in trouble! It felt as if I was on the verge of being expelled.

“You have a break tomorrow,” Bernard said, after the interrogation. “Don’t do anything important. Stay in bed, go walking, go down to town … do whatever you like, as long as it isn’t important. You need to rest before the results are announced.”

I nodded, stiffly, and staggered back to the dining hall. The kitchens were working at all hours to ensure we had enough to eat, rather than wait for lunch or dinner. I told myself not to get used to it as I took a plate of food and ate hastily, washing the dinner down with water and juice. It was only for exam season. I wondered, as I took a second plate, just how well I had done. Well enough to pass? Or would I go back to the beginning? I was uneasy aware I might have done well on the practical exams, but I might have flubbed a pair of the verbal questions. I went through it again and again, endlessly revising my answers even though I knew it was too late. There was no helping it now.

A rustle ran through the hall as Cemburu entered. I did my best to look up without making it obvious. I didn’t think he would curse me in the back, not in front of so many eyes, but it was hard to be sure. He had been under a lot of pressure and I knew all too well that such men could easily lash out without thinking of the consequences. And yet … my eyes narrowed. There was a faint, superior, smile on his face as he made his way to the counter, took some stew, and sat down. I met his eyes and tried not to blink in surprise. He looked as if he had got one over me. Ice prickled down my spine. What had he done?

I felt uneasy – and paranoid - as I finished my dinner, put the plate in the pile to be washed, and made by way back to my room. What had he done? I didn’t think Cemburu would dare to break into my room, but I could be wrong. He knew a few tricks, enough – perhaps - to leave a surprise or two on my doorknob or under my sheets. Or … my imagination ran away with me as I tested the door carefully, then pushed it open. There were spells to spy on someone from a distance. Perhaps he had put one in my room, hoping to catch me undressing. It would mean more to him than it did to me. Growing up in a farming village meant almost no privacy.

My unease only deepened as I searched the room from top to bottom. There was nothing, save for the ever-present background magic. It was hard to tell if Cemburu had forced his way inside or if I was just being paranoid. Perhaps the exhaustion was getting to me. I was so tired I could barely force myself to check the bed before I locked the door and went to sleep. But again, there was nothing.

Perhaps he thinks I failed, I thought, as I woke up the following morning. The gods know I wasn’t trained in debate.

The tutors, I decided after breakfast, had found a new way to torture students. The exams were largely over, but there were no hints of who had passed and who had failed. Most of my peers decided to head down to town, to lose themselves in drink and debauchery; I stayed behind, if only because it wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing. I had seen too many men - and a few women - turn into monsters, after drinking themselves silly, for me to risk getting drunk myself. Cemburu didn’t go down to town either. I saw him walk into the forest and vanish into the trees. I was tempted to follow him, but I had better things to do. I went back to the practice chambers and started revising my spells. Even if I failed the exam, I told myself, I had still made incredible progress.

It wasn’t until the following morning that we finally got our results - and I realised why Cemburu had been so pleased with himself. He had passed! More than that, I noted sourly; he had passed with flying colours. The ranking system was simple, very easy to understand. As impossible as it was to believe, Cemburu had done better than me and everyone else in the class. I couldn’t believe it!

I was still goggling at the ranking when I felt a hard swat on my bottom. “I beat you,” Cemburu jeered. “I beat you! I beat everyone!”

My wand was in my hand a second later. “Do you want me to kick your arse in front of everyone again?”

Cemburu’s smile grew wider. “Do you think you can?”

I glared. I knew I had come close to losing the challenge. I would have lost if he hadn’t made a tiny, but fatal, mistake. I had practised more since then, and gone through every last step of the duel with Master Falladine, yet I wasn’t wholly confident of victory. I wanted to knock him down hard, with all the magic I could muster, but … I couldn’t take the thought of becoming the class outcast again. I tried to tell myself that I should be happy for him, that I should be impressed yet done so well, but …

It grew worse, as classes resumed. Cemburu was practically a different person. He jumped ahead by leaps and bounds, putting together spells in ways I hadn’t thought possible. I had no idea how he was doing it. I hadn’t fallen down all the way to the bottom, not again, but Cemburu was catching up. The question nagged at me - how was he doing it? Had he found a tutor? There was no rule against it or he would have cited it when he had realised Master Falladine had been giving me private lessons. Or … or what?

His behaviour didn’t improve either. He made snide remarks to me that brought me to inches of hitting him again, or challenging him to a second duel, all the while being cheeky and disrespectful to the tutors. I wondered if he was insane. The tutors would have no trouble dealing with him if he pushed them too far. I didn’t think anyone would go out of his way to get a thrashing and yet … Cemburu seem to be doing just that. The other boys noticed something was wrong - and boys, in my experience, were incredibly obtuse when it came to such things. Cemburu might be working his way back up to the top, but his former cronies had not gone back to him. The rest of the boys kept their distance too. It was … weird. They had welcomed me as one of them, when I had proved myself, but not Cemburu. I didn’t pretend to understand it.

I kept a wary eye on him as he swanned around the school. His behaviour was bizarre. He would talk to some of the tutors as an equal, all the while pushing the younger students around. He had the right to tell the juniors to fetch and carry for him, as had I, but he took it too far. I didn’t know if they were allowed to complain - I haven’t, when I had been a junior - yet I thought it was just a matter of time before he crossed the line. I couldn’t understand why the staff hadn’t done anything. It was one thing to make the juniors work, but quite another to push them into doing things they really shouldn’t. I wrestled with my conscience. I didn’t want a reputation as a tattletale, or a sneak, but this was going too far. Perhaps I could have a quiet word with Master Falladine, ask him if he had noticed something. Or …

But no one would ever trust me again, I thought. It was a bitter realisation. Being alone would be a thousand times worse, now that I had had the experience of having friends and peers. If I tell the staff …

I didn’t. I couldn’t. But when I saw Cemburu going into the woods, again, I followed.

I hadn’t expected it to be difficult to follow Cemburu. He was no woodsman. He had bragged of riding horses in pursuit of wild animals, and insisted he had killed a giant boar with a spear, but he had never lived in the words like I had. I doubted he knew anything about living off the land. And yet, I had to work to keep him in sight without getting so close he would certainly spot me. It wasn’t easy. He moved from tree to tree, shadow to shadow, glancing back constantly as if he thought he was being followed. I kept my distance as best as I could. If he caught me out here …

The thought irritated me as I kept walking. I wasn’t scared of Cemburu. And yet, I knew he was a decent magician. If he caught me, if he challenged me so far from school, he could kill me and swear blind he had had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t unknown for students to give up and just walk away, without even bothering to tell the staff they were leaving. I had no idea how it was handled, when the student reached his home, but … it wasn’t impossible I might have left the school. Cemburu was certainly foolish enough to think he convince the staff I had gone. Or maybe he would just keep his mouth shut on the assumption no one would consider him a possible suspect. It wasn’t as foolish as it seemed. The staff would not expect me to follow him into the woods.

Our path grew rougher as we made our way further from the school. The undergrowth grew thicker, tainted with wild magic. My eyes narrowed as Cemburu kept walking. Was he going into the deepest darkest parts of the wood, where the Other Folk lived? I knew to keep my distance from their mounds, and any suspiciously neat mushroom rings, but Cemburu? Did he understand the dangers? Or did he think he could walk in and out without consequence? I had no idea what was going through his head as he hurried on, slipping through a nightmare of trees that looked as though they were biding their time before coming to life and attacking anyone foolish enough to come within reach of their branches. There were places the trees were supposed to walk, to move position when no one was watching. I wondered if the trees nearby walked too. It wasn’t impossible. There was a lot of wild magic in the air.

My blood ran cold as I realised what wasn’t in the air. Birdsong. The woods should have been alive; small birds flying overhead, insects buzzing through the air and rodents scurrying through the undergrowth. Instead, the air was silent, so quiet I thought I could hear my heartbeat. It felt as if the whole world was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. Ice ran down my spine. My instincts, honed by years on an isolated farming village, told me to turn my back and run. Or perhaps not to run, just to inch away without letting unseen eyes think I was running. I gritted my teeth and kept walking, noting how Cemburu kept walking too. Either he was braver than I had thought, or stupider. He could sense magic as well as I could. Surely, he could tell how dangerous - and unnatural - the world had become.

Except he never spent any time in the woods, I thought, grimly. He has no idea what is normal and what isn’t.

I nearly tripped over the tiny body on the ground. I bit my lip to keep from swearing. The world so quiet that even a whisper might be carried straight to his ears. The body had been a hedgehog, I thought, but it had been so heavily mutilated that I wasn’t sure of anything. Someone had caught the beast, gorged out its eyes and used its blood for … I felt sick as I saw the lines drawn on the ground. I had no qualms about catching and killing a hedgehog - they were good eating - but this was too much. I had to swallow, hard, to keep from throwing up. I’d seen animals being slaughtered - I had raised a pig myself, fattening her for the kill - and yet this was pointless sadism, tinged with dark magic. I was tempted to turn and go straight back to school, to alert the staff to what Cemburu was doing. But I wasn’t sure they would listen. It was difficult to tell what they would do. Instead, I stepped over the body - careful not to dislodge anything - and made my way further into the woods. Cemburu was so far ahead of me I had lost sight of him, forcing me to rely on my woodcraft to track him. I was lucky he didn’t seem to know he was being followed. If he had realised I was shadowing him, he could have led me in circles or set an ambush. I had done both as a young girl when my siblings and I have been practising our skills. No one had beaten me when it came to hiding in the woods.

There were more dead bodies lying on the ground as I followed him. Small birds, small rodents, all killed to cast a handful of spells. Dark magic lingered around them, like embers from a fire that had burnt itself out. The air felt clammy, unpleasant to the touch. My skin crawled despite the hot summer day. It was surprisingly cold under the trees and yet …

I frowned as I spotted the latest body. The mouse should have been eaten long ago. Dead bodies didn’t remain intact for long, not in the woods. A carrion-eater should have taken the body, or it should simply have decomposed, but instead it was just … unchanged. There was no hint of decay, even though I was sure the mouse had been killed at least a week or two ago. The poor thing had been tortured to death. I gritted my teeth as I straightened up and made my way onwards. I knew how to live off the land, but I also knew to be respectful to the land. This was just … something else. I remembered Cemburu’s bragging and shuddered. It was one thing to kill an animal for food, but quite another to do it for fun.

The trees parted suddenly, revealing a tiny clearing. Cemburu knelt in the heart of the clearing, his naked back to me. I tried not to roll my eyes as I realised he was naked. It was hardly the first naked body I’d seen – there was no such thing as privacy in a village - and hardly the best. I couldn’t help thinking he looked suspiciously pale, without a tan or any other sign of honest living. But then, he hadn’t grown up working to keep his family alive.

My eyes narrowed as he picked up a knife and started to cut himself. I was surprised he had the nerve. Blood dripped down his arm, allowing him to use his other arm to take the blood and use it to draw lines on his skin. A wave of cold air seemed to press against me as I caught a glimpse of one of the lines, drawn from his head to his heart and below. He moved on to use his blood to draw a simple circle on the ground, then placed five candles around the circle. It felt dangerous, as if something very bad was going to happen. I wanted to act, to slip up behind him and bop him over the head, yet my limbs refused to move. For a panicky moment, I thought he had spotted me and frozen me without giving me a chance to react, but instead I was just too scared to move. It felt as if the world was about to end.

Cemburu sat upright and muttered a handful of words. Each one sounded fundamentally wrong, as if the mere act of speaking them should have destroyed his voice forever. I couldn’t recall the words, the moment they were spoken. It was as if they had gone in one ear and out the other, without ever passing through my brain. Even trying to remember them made my head spin. I felt sick, almost feverish, as the world to grow dim, as if it had tilted off its axis, as if I was on the verge of death. The surge of tainted magic grew stronger and stronger. Cemburu leaned forward, peering into the circle on the ground. I saw …

There was something there. It was … it was a thing. My eyes seemed to skip over it, as if they refused to look at it directly. It was always in the corner of my eye, even when it wasn’t … it wasn’t. My head could not grasp what I was seeing. It looked like a tiny man-shaped shimmer, but the thing was so fundamentally wrong I couldn’t be sure of anything. It was just … just looking at it made me feel sick.

Cemburu was looking at it as if he had never seen anything more beautiful. I couldn’t believe it. He was naked, covered in his own blood, and yet he seemed to be taking it in stride. He was jerking back and forth, his arms moving silently. I had the impression he was speaking to the thing, but it was hard to be sure. Was it speaking to him? I couldn’t hear anything, but that was meaningless. There are plenty of ways to speak without being heard. I knew a few myself. His hands moved in patterns that were disturbingly familiar. It struck me, in a moment of horrific insight, that the thing was teaching him magic.

I leaned forward, trying to parse out what he’d done. It wasn’t easy. The thing was a blur of raw magic, a creature born of magic and magic alone. It looked, to my senses, so fantastically complex there was no hope of untangling its very being. The spells linking the thing to Cemburu were much easier to understand, but rooted in his blood. I felt cold. Magic ran in the blood, I had been told, and any spell that involved blood was suspicious and had to be considered dark until proven otherwise. I had been cautioned never to allow anyone to get a sample of my blood. If someone did, they could curse me from a safe distance - or worse. And Cemburu had given his blood freely …

My eyes lingered on the bloodlines he had drawn. He was channelling his magic into the circle. I thought the thing was drawing on his power, using it to do … something. I had never heard of someone giving someone else his magic, although I didn’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done. The teachers had told us there were some things we wouldn’t be taught until we could be trusted to handle them, something I had found a little insulting before realising magic offered infinite danger as well as potential. It was all too easy, they had said, to accidentally kill yourself. Or someone else.

Cemburu’s hands moved jerkily, as if he wasn’t in complete control. I had barely a second to realise he was casting a spell before my body moved of its own accord, standing upright and walking into clearing. Another flash of panic ran through me as I came to a halt. I hadn’t known it was possible for one magician to control another, not like that. Cemburu or one of his goons would have had me doing their chores – or serving then in other ways - if they thought they could put me under their spell. My body felt as if it longer belonged to me. The thing seemed to smile, even though I couldn’t see any visible mouth - or anything.

“What?” Cemburu sounded as it was on the verge of panic himself. He hadn’t known I was there. He hadn’t even realised what his hands were doing. I wondered, suddenly, just which of them was actually in charge. There was no shortage of horror stories about idiots who had tried to make deals with the Awful Folk and discovered, too late, that they could be trusted to interpret the bargain in the worst possible way. “What is she doing here?”

I tried to speak, but my mouth refused to move. I was held firmly under his control. Or the thing’s control. I couldn’t tell which of them was casting the spell. I had thought it was him, but… I just didn’t know. The thing spoke in words I could not understand, its voice a buzzing horror that made me want to throw up. Just listening to the sound made me feel as if I had jumped right into a cesspit, covering myself in human waste. My body felt slimy and disgusting, my mind felt as if someone had taken a shit in my brain. The revulsion was so strong it weakened their control. I felt my limbs twitch and told them to be still. I was in no state to fight, not even againstCemburu alone. I had no idea what the thing could do. If it really was one of the Awful Folk …

The thing looked at me. I felt my mouth opening of its own accord.

“I followed you,” I heard myself say. “I was jealous of your progress and magical progress. I wanted to know how you did it. And I will now go back to the school and report you to your masters. They will kick you out without a second thought.”

I tried hard to shut my mouth. I hadn’t followed him because I was jealous … well, not very jealous. But instead … I saw horror wash over his face and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the thing had made me say the worst possible thing. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, or why, but it was so far across the line that his expulsion - or worse - was a foregone conclusion.Cemburu would have to silence me permanently or risk being expelled. And yet … something nagged at my mind. The thing wouldn’t need to manipulate him if it could kill me itself. I found that oddly heartening. If it couldn’t get out of the circle …

Cemburu’s hands twisted. “But they’ll wonder what happened to her!”

I blinked in surprise. He was lying. No, he was trying to avoid admitting he didn’t want to kill me. Perhaps he was too cowardly to strike the killing blow or … perhaps he had limits. Everyone had their limits, I’ve been told, and perhaps he had finally discovered his. Or maybe he just thought there was no way he wouldn’t be questioned if I never returned to the castle. He wasn’t a very good liar. He wouldn’t be able to maintain his story if Bernard or Master Falladine interrogated him.

The thing spoke again, the words passing through my ears without comprehension. The feeling of being touched something utterly disgusting was quite bad enough. Cemburu reacted as if he had been struck, his body shaking as if someone had slapped him across the face. I wished I knew what the thing had said and yet I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Perhaps it had called him a coward to his face. It was the easiest way for one boy to get another to do something stupid. I didn’t thinkCemburu was that different. And besides, he had a great deal to lose.

His body twitched, one hand reaching for the knife on the ground. I met his eyes, briefly, and saw a conflicting storm of emotions. He didn’t want to kill me, to cross the line, and yet if he didn’t kill me his secret would be revealed. I wondered, briefly, if I could offer my word to keep his secret, if he let me go, but I doubted he’d accept anything I said. The risk was just too high. I could hear the thing talking, urging him on, pushing whatever buttons it had to push to convince Cemburu to kill me. His hands shook as he raised the dagger, tears dripping from his eyes. I would have sorrier for him if he hadn’t been planning to kill me.

“It’s just like one of the animals,” he whispered. He was trying desperately to convince himself of that. “It has to be done …”

He kept rambling. “I could turn her into a mouse, or a bird, or something … you could show me how, couldn’t you?”

Panic ran through me. I didn’t know any spells that could turn someone into an animal, but there were stories of the Awful Folk cursing men into stags or women into birds. I didn’t know what the thing could do, yet if it was one of them it might be able to tell Cemburu how to do it. And then … none of the stories ended happily. Most ended with the animal reverting to human form after being killed, often by his family. If the thing could show him how he could get rid of me without actually killing me … the thought was terrifying. No one would ever see me again.

I gritted my teeth, then bit my lip as hard as I could. The pain startled me out of the trance, but my legs felt as if they had been turned to jelly. I saw surprise in his eyes as I swung wildly, striking him in the jaw. His knife dropped from his hand and I caught it before it hit the ground. He stumbled backwards and crossed the circle, knocking over the candles and crashing into the thing. I heard something laugh as Cemburu put himself and straightened up, his eyes meeting mine. They burned like hot coals …

… and I knew, as the laughter went on and on, that I had made a horrific mistake.

Cemburu smiled at me.

I felt utter terror threatening to overwhelm me as his face stretched in inhuman directions. His eyes pulsed in tune with his heartbeat, pulsing with a diabolical power. The thing was inside him, I realised numbly; it was possessing him. He stretched, as if he was slowly getting used to his new body. I swallowed hard as he ran his hands down his body, resting them on his erect member. I saw no mercy in the burning red eyes. He was going to kill me, after he had had his fun. And at that point I feared I would be begging for death. Cemburu was gone. The thing had taken his place.

My nerve broke and I ran, heading into the woods. Magic crackled behind me as the thing started to follow me. I could feel it, a burning presence at the back of my mind, like feeling the sun shining on my back. I cursed Cemburu under my breath as I tried to pick up speed, to reach the castle before the thing caught up with me, but I had the feeling it was useless. The woodland paths were twisting around me, threatening to turn me around and send me walking straight back into its clutches. What the hell had Cemburu been doing? What the hell had he summoned? The thing was powerful, so powerful its mere presence poisoned the air. I hoped Bernard and the other senior magicians could handle it, but I was afraid they couldn’t. It was just too powerful. And yet …

I heard laughter echoing through the trees. The path twisted again and I found myself walking straight towards the thing. Cemburu’s body was glowing with an eerie light, the bloodlines steaming as the thing steered him onwards. I yelped as a hand, stretching in inhuman directions, reached for me, then jumped and fled back into the woods. It was one of the Awful Folk, I was sure. Nothing else could control the land around it. I dared not go back to the castle while it was on the prowl, even if it let me. I didn’t think the other magicians had any way to deal with it. Back home, we knew to avoid the mounds. It was a tacit admittance that walking into their territory meant we might never be seen again. And yet Cemburu had been and gone many times.

It let him go, I thought, as the path twisted again. I was suddenly running on the spot. No matter how hard I ran, I made no progress. I felt the thing behind me, felt its fingers brushing my rear, and forced myself to run harder. The world seemed to twist a third time. I was somehow falling to the ground, as if I had just run over a cliff. It let him go so he could cause trouble elsewhere.

My mind raced. It was not in me to give up. There had to be a way out. I tried to recall what I had seen and come up with a plan. The magic had followed the blood, hadn’t it? Perhaps if I got the blood off Cemburu’s body the thing would be dislodged and sent back to wherever it found it. Perhaps … I couldn’t think of a way to do it. My body ached, a grim reminder that I would tire and eventually fall. The thing didn’t seem to have any sense it could tire. Cemburu hadn’t been the fittest person in the world, but the thing could drive him on until he dropped dead. Or … I recalled the old tales, the ones rarely told to children, about men who’d been hag-ridden. It was possible he could be driven on forever.

I heard something rustling in the undergrowth, a moment before a swarm of rodents rushed at me. It wasn’t uncommon, in a heavy rainstorm, but here … I barely had a second to realise I was under attack before they started swarming me, teeth nibbling at my clothes. I grabbed for the nearest tree and scrambled up as fast as I could, kicking out at the more persistent rodents as they tried to bite me. I thanked all the gods I had worn my regular clothes, rather than school robes. They were tough enough to provide some protection. And yet, some of the rats were still clinging on. I gasped in pain as one of them bit its way into my skin. I could feel the blood welling up and dripping to the ground.

The thing laughed as I grabbed the rodent and yanked it free. It struggled in my hand, but I was a past master at holding small animals so they could neither escape nor bite me. I could feel the laughter hanging in the air, a cold unpleasant sound that made it clear the thing was toying with me. It didn’t have to hunt me down in a hurry. It was just enjoying itself, flexing its power before it went onwards. And yet … I scrambled from tree as the thing came into view. It was hard to be sure, because it was still hard look at it directly, but I had the impression that Cemburu’s body was starting to break down. The thing was expending impossible levels of magic. Was it drawing on Cemburu’s body to power its magic? Or … what was I missing?

A wild thought shot through me as the thing stopped beneath the first tree. It used blood to transfer magic. Cemburu had use his own blood as part of the summoning rite. And now it was in the position to pick up my blood and use it … I tried not to panic as I realised what it could do. Curse me, control me, ride my blood into my body … I wondered, suddenly, if it would take any better care of my body than it had of Cemburu’s. It could possess me and walk straight into the castle, with no one any the wiser. I shuddered to think what it could do inside the school. If no one knew it was wearing my face, it could get close to one of the tutors and then … they wouldn’t recognise the threat. How could they? I was a very junior student. I was no threat to them. But if the thing wore my face …

I briefly considered suicide. I could jump from a high tree and hit the ground hard enough to kill me, but that would be the end. I didn’t like the idea of killing myself. And besides, the thing had enough control over the trees to twist the world around me and make sure I didn’t actually die. My blood seemed to grow warm, just for a moment, a disconcerting feeling that felt worse than my father’s belt. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t so much painful as fundamentally wrong. I could barely focus my mind as the heat grew stronger. I realised, numbly, that the thing was trying to possess me. I could feel it forcing its way into me. It whispered seductive sweet nothings into my mind, promises of everything I could ever want if I surrendered and let it take control. Perhaps I would have believed it, if I hadn’t seen what it had done to Cemburu. It might keep its promises, perhaps, but not in the way I wanted.

The old stories echoed through my head. There was always a sting in the tail.

GET OUT, I thought as hard as I could. I was screaming inside, but it felt like a whisper. My mouth refused to work. I could feel the creature pressing down on me. It was huge and strong and I was so tiny and weak. The thought weakened my resolution. I forced myself to scream again. GET OUT.

My hands jerked. I lost my grip on the tree branch and fell. The presence in my mind drew back sharply as I plummeted to the ground. I had a moment to realise it was scared before I caught hold of another branch and slowed my fall, just enough to land roughly but safely. I nearly let go of the rat. The thing hovered at the back of my mind, yet made no attempt to take advantage of my pain. I wondered if it was nervous about entering a suffering mind. Perhaps it wasn’t used to human pain. Or at least to being on the receiving end.

The air shifted as the thing started to walk towards me. I forced myself to stagger away, feeling its presence pushing back into my mind. It couldn’t see me, I thought, but it could certainly feel me. My blood was all it needed to find me. It would lead the thing to me effortlessly. I was in no state to do anything. My legs might not be broken, or I wouldn’t have been able to walk at all, but they ached so badly I knew they wouldn’t last long. It was painful to move. And yet … a desperate plan rushed through my mind. If it worked …

This is dangerous, part of my mind whispered. I was going to take one hell of a chance - and break a number of rules while I was at it. Bernard would probably expel me if he realised what I had done. And yet, what choice did I have? My thoughts mocked me. Letting it possess me would be even more dangerous.

I gritted my teeth as I drew the knife and cut the rat’s skin, allowing our blood to merge. I let my instincts steer the magic as I reached out carefully, touching the thing’s presence. It was knocking at the door, making all kinds of promises - it struck me, suddenly, that I was hearing whatever I want to hear. No wonder it had seduced Cemburu so easily. It hadn’t so much as made him an offer as let him make the offer to himself. And he had been so tempted he hadn’t stopped to think about the downside. If I hadn’t seen what the thing had done to him …

My heart raced as I opened, very slightly, the door to my mind. The thing rushed forward, passing through the bloodline like a young man desperate to get close to a woman before she changed her mind, and slid straight into the rat. The poor creature’s eyes turned red. I felt the thing’s rage bubbling and boiling as it realised it had been tricked, drawing on the fragments of magic from my blood to cast a spell aimed at me. I could feel the spell taking shape, a nightmarish vision of my body twisting and turning and morphing permanently into a rat. The sight scared me so deeply I didn’t hesitate. I snapped the rat’s neck effortlessly. The thing howled one final time, its presence battering against my mind, then vanished. I felt the rat’s body crumble into dust. It was over.

I heard a thump behind me. I turned slowly, and staggered back to Cemburu. Was he dead? Part of me thought it would be a good thing if he was. He had summoned the thing and treated it as a tutor, using it for lessons in magic … unaware, I realised glumly, that it had been using him too. The rest of me hoped he was still alive. He had bitten off more than he could chew, true, and he had tried not to kill me even though killing me was the only thing he could do to save himself. I wanted to take him back to the castle and let the staff pass judgement on him. Who knew? Perhaps they’d think he had learnt his lesson.

He was lying on the ground, whimpering. I reached out carefully with my senses, just to make sure the thing was truly gone, and then knelt beside him and patted his arm awkwardly. He looked up at me, then down at himself, then flushed bright red. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking. I inspected his body grimly, noting just how thin he looked. Cemburu never been overweight - I couldn’t name a single magician in the school who was - but now he looked like a serf girl who had been sent out to die. His bones were clearly visible in his chest. I suspected he was lucky he hadn’t died like the rat.

But then, if the thing had managed to possess me, it could have used him as an ally, I thought. Cemburu didn’t have the nerve to stand up to the thing. He could have gone places my body could not.

“Janis,” Cemburu managed. His voice sounded weak, a pale shadow of its former self. My cousin had broken his leg and he hasn’t sounded so weak. “I …”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I didn’t want to hear apologies, if apologies were what he was going to offer. “Worry about what you’re going to tell the staff.”

It was not easy to get back to the school. I felt tired and drained, my legs aching painfully, and Cemburu could barely walk. We leaned on each other as we staggered through the woods and out into the grounds. I was grateful there were so few students in the school. It made it easier for us to get back without being noticed. Bernard met us as we it crossed the wardline. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. We were both tainted with wild and dark magic.

“It was all my fault,” Cemburu said. I was surprised he was throwing himself on his sword for me. But then, he probably couldn’t hope to get away with a lie. “She saved my life.”

“Then you had better work to repay her,” Bernard said. “Come with me.”

He walked us up to his office, then told me to wait in a side room as he interrogated Cemburu. It felt like hours before he summoned me and asked me hundreds of questions about just what had happened and why. It was a painful process and it left me feeling more than a little insulted, although I supposed he didn’t know my word was good. I asked him a handful of questions of my own, but he refused to be drawn on most of them. The precise nature of the thing was one of them. He got very tight-lipped when I asked him what it had been, and chose only to say that it had been incredibly dangerous and I had been very lucky to survive. I had the feeling he thought I knew more than I did about the thing, but I didn’t. He dismissed me, eventually, with congratulations - and a warning to keep my mouth shut.

I did, until now.

I returned to classes. Cemburu rejoined us, two weeks later. Quite what Bernard had said to him was never disclosed, at least not to me, although I had the impression that his possession was deemed sufficient punishment for his foolishness. Cemburu was a changed man. We didn’t become friends, not really, but we did learn to work together when the school faced other threats in the next two years. It was difficult, yet we managed.

Me? I was the first witch in Whitehall, but I was not the last.

Let that be my legacy.

At this point, the scroll ends.

It is not clear what happened to Janis after this. What few records we have of Early Whitehall suggests the school was attacked, frequently, until it managed to carve out a niche for itself as part of the newborn Empire. If she followed the same path as her peers - most of whom have left no trace on the historical record - she would have graduated a few years after the events depicted in the scroll, and then gone on to serve the school in some capacity. It is possible she was the first housemother, supervising the new female students, but we have no clue one way or the other. There are references to a female staff member a few years after the scroll who could have been Janis, yet we may never know.

There is some evidence to suggest that there were, at one point, other scrolls. It is unlikely that this is the only scroll Janis ever produced, given that there are hints she graduated school and survived for quite some time afterwards. It is, however, impossible to be sure. Our records are just too garbled. There are faint references to a Janis two hundred years later, but it seems unlikely that is the same person. We are forced to assess the scroll based on what she tells us and little else. It is not an easy task.

The idea that a woman could not study magic, and not match her male counterparts, seems strange and alien to us now. Generations of mixed-sex education have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that women are not inherently inferior to men when it comes to using and developing magic. Many popular spells were developed by female magicians; many female magicians have served as everything from healers to alchemists, enchanters and combat sorcerers. Indeed, given the importance of weaving new magical potential into long-established bloodlines, the idea of ignoring half the candidates because they were born female is just absurd.

And yet, it took longer than one might expect for women to start studying formal magic.

It is difficult to understand why, without a solid grounding in early spellcasting. In mundane terms, the early spells inflicted considerable damage upon their casters. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the raw magic damaged the magician’s body and mind, resulting – eventually - in madness and death. This often resulted in outright sterility, to the point that it was relatively rare for the early magicians to have children. Males got low sperm counts; females, unfortunately, were rendered almost completely sterile. It was not until formal magic was introduced, with the magic toned down to limit the damage as much as possible, that both men and women were able to study magic freely.

It was true, also, that witches tended to be feared. The average villager of those times would tolerate, rather than like, the village witch; it was not unknown, particular in the days of the magical purge, for the witch to be driven out of the village or forced to live at some distance from the town itself. This may seem absurd today, when a lynch mob could be turned into toads with the wave of a witch’s hands, but the spells for human transfiguration had yet to be developed. Indeed, most girls who showed signs of magic were quietly advised to leave the village, pointed towards Whitehall or a distant witch, or simply murdered. The risk of them losing control of their powers was simply too great. Our heroine, assuming she existed at all, was very lucky. Her father would have been quite within his rights to kill her and his community would certainly have expected him to do so.

If this document is genuine, it represents the first major insight we have into the period of early magical schooling. It shows us a fascinating glimpse of early Whitehall and how the commune’s practices slowly morphed into the system of education we still use today. It also introduces us to someone who should be entered into the historical record, and honoured for her contributions to the school.

It is unclear, of course, if it is genuine. It is quite possible that the scroll was written considerably later, then concealed within the school for reasons unknown. There were certainly times within the history of the school where the tunnels might have been opened and then resealed, although we have little hard information. If that is the case, the document would have passed many magical checks and verifications spells without raising suspicions.

That said, the document is not written in High Speech or the cruder forms of Low Speech. The scroll is written in one of, if not the, oldest known languages, a formal script that eventually evolved into Imperial Script and eventually both High and Low Speech. It is astonishingly difficult for anyone in this day and age to write so fluently in the script and indeed, a great deal of information has been lost - up to and including what the contemporaries actually called the script. Many a fake document has been discovered by the forger carelessly referring to the script as Old Script, the term developed by the History Guild several centuries later; it goes without saying, I think, that Old Script was not the original name. The writer clearly learnt to read and write late in life, as there are random errors within the text that would be extremely difficult to fake. Old Script was more tolerant of errors than the later High Speech, and none of the contemporaries would have any difficulty reading the scroll; indeed, the lack of any more recent flourishes is solid proof the scroll is what it claims to be.

It is worth noting, also, that my female colleagues insist there is something decidedly feminine about the writing. This is something that would be unapparent in any document written in High Speech, where the writing is designed to be largely sexless and rhetorical flourishes are strongly discouraged. This is often blamed for the lack of riveting documents and texts produced between the First Emperor and the Empire’s fall, centuries later. It is unlikely that anyone who wrote during that period would be able to escape the conventions of the time.

Set against this, however, there are the references to magics that literally do not exist. The Lay of Lord Alfred makes many references to impossible feats, from strange creatures at his beck and call to the ancient magician plucking the moon out of the sky, and it is far from alone in attributing wondrous powers to individuals who may never have existed at all, but this document is different. The thing might be one of the Awful Folk, as Janis speculated, or it might have been made up of whole cloth. There is certainly nothing like it active today.

It is quite possible, of course, that certain spells and magical rites were lost over the years, particularly after the disaster that destroyed a number of noted magical bloodlines, but is very rare for magical knowledge be lost completely. That said, magic was far less understood in those days and the combination of that lack of understanding and entities dwelling within nearby high-magic zones might easily have created tales of magic and powers beyond human comprehension.

This is not unknown in other fields. Castle Corte appeared to showcase a whole new method of construction, but attempts to duplicate it proved futile. It was not until several failed attempts that the builders realised the original design had only worked because the castle rested on very solid ground indeed. The early magicians could have had the same problem.

My personal belief is that the scroll is genuine. There are too many details that ring true from the point of view of the founders, but not today. The tendency to view the past through a modern-day lens makes it difficult to understand the limitations facing the founders, their apprentices and students, and everyone else caught up in great events.

But I could be wrong.

Historian Titus, History Guild