And then he’ll give her something real to complain about, I reflected. Boscha didn’t discriminate. He was a petty little sadist to everyone. Even his favourites couldn’t relax around him. She’d be wiser to say nothing and soak up the lesson.
We stood close together, holding hands as we reached the edge of the wards. Our unique nature had always confused them, back when we’d been students. The wards weren’t smart enough to tell us apart, allowing one of us to sneak into the library at midnight while the rest stayed in our beds and pretended the fourth was with us. I don’t think the Grandmaster ever realised just how much sneaking around we’d done, during six years of education. He’d certainly never raised the issue with our guardian.
“Go subtle,” Void muttered, to Himilco. “And don’t get too far from Hasdrubal.”
“Go tell uncle to do some bloody exercise,” Himilco muttered back. “Or something else equally useless.”
I hid my smile as they wrapped themselves in magic and shadowed me, so close I could practically feel their breath on the back of my neck. Invisibility charms were all very well and good, but they weren’t perfect. Once someone got a hint of their presence, particularly a magical someone, their charms would rapidly lose their effectiveness. Obscurification charms worked so much better, particularly if I remained visible. Anyone who spotted a hint of their presence would attribute it to me, instead of two others hidden behind charms. The wards wouldn’t notice anything else. We’d done it often enough, as students, to be sure we’d remain undetected until it was far too late.
A young student met me as we stepped into the main hall. I looked him up and down as he bowed, then pasted a smile on my face. The badge on his robes marked him as a prefect… I hoped he wasn’t one of the prefects who regularly abused his powers. I still had scars from the beating one of those bastards had given me, years ago, and there were times when I wondered if he still had the scars from what we’d done to him. He looked nice and polite, his robes neatly tailored rather than elaborate to the point of ridiculousness, but that was meaningless. I was an older magician. He’d be polite to me on pain of transfiguration.
“Sir,” the student said. He seemed unaware of Void and Himilco. “I am Robin. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to Professor Bodoh.”
I nodded. “Please,” I said. It would be nice to see Professor Bodoh again, even though the interview would be nothing more than a formality. Really, not even that. “Lead on.”
Robin nodded, then lead the way through a maze of corridors. I knew the school like the back of my hand and I had absolutely no trouble telling he was taking us the long way around. I wondered, absently, if he was wasting time on purpose or if he was just playing with us. Prefects disliked serving as guides. They felt such jobs were better given to the younger students. Or so I’d been told. We’d never been prefects ourselves.
“Thank you,” I said, when we reached Professor Bodoh’s office. “You’ll wait outside for me?”
“Yes, sir.” Robin wasn’t practiced enough to hide his displeasure, not from me. I guessed he wanted to get away before Professor Bodoh called him back to guide me out of the school. “I’ll be here.”
“Good man,” I said. I dipped a hand into my robe and pulled out a coin, the charms we’d carefully woven into the gold a dull ache against my fingers. I put on the most condescending tone I could as I held it out to him. “Buy yourself something sweet in the town.”
Robin’s eyes flickered, irritation masked too late. I showed no reaction. His annoyance would make it harder for him to spot the charms. He took the coin and held it as I opened the door and stepped into the office. The other two would wait outside, ready to act as the charms oozed their way into the poor student’s mind. He’d taken the coin willingly. He might as well have dropped all his wards and dared us to curse him into next week.
And now we’ve crossed the line, I thought. Void deflecting a silly girl’s spell back at her was harmless. It would teach her a lesson and nothing more. No one would have blamed him for altering the spell to make it last longer, or simply giving her a public thrashing. Enchanting a student to use him as a cat’s paw was quite another matter. It was a crime. There’s no going back now.
Chapter Five
Professor Bodoh had always been my favourite teacher.
It was hard to say why. He was a tall, powerfully built man who didn’t suffer fools gladly and had no qualms about smacking our hands when we messed up our spellwork beyond any hope of recovery. The combination of icy blue eyes and hair cut close to his scalp gave him a devastatingly intimidating appearance, to the point his mere presence could calm a corridor riot in the blink of an eye. It was no mere pretence either. He had a list of duelling trophies — legal and semi-legal — longer than my arm. I should not have liked him and yet I did. He was so different from our uncle that there was simply no contest.
“Hasdrubal,” Professor Bodoh said, as I stepped into the chamber. “You’ve come back.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I understand you require an assistant.”
“Among other things,” Professor Bodoh said. There were other charms tutors, but they guarded their semi-independence closely. I suspected I knew, now, why they’d been so few candidates for the post. “What have you been doing with yourself, since the apprenticeship?”
I felt another pang of guilt as he bounced questions off me and I did my best to answer. It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t precisely lying to him, but I had no intention of taking up the job either. Even if our experiment failed… I sighed inwardly. I could take up the job, if I wanted, but it would mean giving up all hopes of being recognised as one of the family. And working under Boscha…
The discussion lasted nearly an hour and I felt exhausted at the end, even though the interview was meaningless. Professor Bodoh had never been one to leave any stone unturned — I was glad it hadn’t been him who’d discovered us near the shrine — and he questioned me mercilessly about my work experience. It would be difficult to return to the school as a professor, he warned, when I’d only graduated three years ago. There’d be senior students who remembered me as a student, students who could be relied upon to act out in my class. I’d have to come down on them hard… I cut that line of thought off mercilessly. I wasn’t going to become a tutor. The last thing I wanted was to be under Boscha’s thumb.
“I’ll be in touch,” Professor Bodoh said, when we’d finished. “By the way, what are you doing at the shrine?”
“Draining wild magic,” I said, silently relieved we’d gone through the cover story time and time again. “We intend to cleanse the land, then claim the reward.”
“Interesting,” Professor Bodoh said, neutrally. “Good luck.”
I stood, bowed, and left the room. Robin stood outside, his face blank. I felt my heart twist painfully. The charms we’d woven into the coin were subtle, designed to avoid detection, but once they took root they were almost impossible to resist. We’d had no choice — brute force charms were all too noticeable, if someone took a close look — yet I still felt guilty. I hoped Robin was one of the prefects who abused his powers. They deserved more than a little painful humiliation…