Which means I have to be sneaky, she thought, as she heard a bunch of new students entering the library. Lauran was amongst them, her face set in a permanent sneer. Damn it.
Nanette stood, returned the book to the trolley and headed for the door. Lauran glared at her, but said nothing. Librarians tended to be touchy about people starting fights in the libraries and rarely bothered to sort out who was actually guilty before handing out punishments and detentions. She stepped through the door, taking advantage of the moment to study the ward protecting the outer library from the rest of the school. It, at least, would be easy to fool… assuming she managed to transfer the charms from one book to the other. She took a breath as she walked down the stairs. She might have to take the copy in and out of the library first, just to see if the wards reacted. She might be able to come up with a good explanation for owning a copy. There was no reasonable explanation for trying to swap one book for the other.
Even being caught with the text would merit some questioning, she mused. As far as they know, I can’t read properly.
She passed a pair of younger students pinning a poster to the walls. Someone had drawn an idealised witch flying a pitchfork, surrounded by a cluster of youngsters flying under their own power. The text called for volunteers to join the flying team, promising a whole series of rewards that would be meaningless when the teamsters left school. Nanette’s lips twitched in dark amusement. Ken taught useful skills, particularly if one knew one might be going into combat. Flying was useless when one’s enemies could bring one down with a simple spell.
Unless there’s more to it than we know, she thought. It didn’t seem likely. The spells were complex, but easy to disrupt. And everyone would be doing it, if it gave a real advantage.
Her feet carried her on, past a handful of empty classrooms and down a flight of stairs to the lower levels. Laughter seemed bigger on the inside, although she wasn’t sure that was actually true. The school had grown down, digging further and further into the mountain with each passing decade. Nanette remembered the tunnels under Mountaintop and shivered. Digging too deep was dangerous. Who knew what one might wake?
She turned the corner and stopped, dead. A trio of third years were casting hexes towards a cowering girl. Nanette stared, torn between horror and grim understanding. Students needed to learn to defend themselves, but… they were third years, casting spells on a younger girl… on Lillian. Nanette’s heart twisted. The girl reminded her of herself, when she’d been a firstie herself. And yet, Lillian didn’t have the power or the nerve to fight back. She might even have come to believe it was impossible.
Nanette clenched her fists, unsure what to do. Mountaintop’s rules were clear. Sink or swim… but even Mountaintop believed older students shouldn’t be starting fights with younger students. A three-year gap was almost insurmountable, certainly for a common-born girl who’d barely been schooled in magic. Nanette had needed nearly four months to find a way to strike back at her tormentor and it had nearly gotten her expelled. Lillian screamed as an invisible force hoisted her off the ground, flipping her upside down. Nanette felt a wave of boiling rage. How dare they?
Magic flowed through her, shaped by her anger and the bitter memory of being just as helpless herself. One of the girls glanced up, an instant before she and her friends started to melt. Their dresses hit the floor, jumping and jerking as if they were animated by a prank spell. Nanette hastily cast a floatation spell as Lillian fell, catching her before she could slam her head into the stone floor. The younger girl seemed to be going into shock. Nanette wondered if she was more surprised by someone helping her than anything else.
She stalked over and picked up one of the empty dresses. A small green frog stared up at her, eyes blinking. Nanette snorted, rudely. They’d been so sure no one would stop them that they hadn’t thought to look to their protections. They couldn’t have kept her from hurting them, if she’d wished, but they could have saved themselves considerable embarrassment. The entire school thought Nadine was a useless loser who probably needed a wand to do anything complex. And she’d just turned three girls into frogs…
A hand caught her ear and yanked her back. “And I suppose,” Lady Damia said, “that you have a good explanation for this?”
“She saved me,” Lillian stammered. “She…”
“I asked Nadine,” Lady Damia said, as she twisted Nanette’s ear. “Do you have an answer, girl?”
Nanette cursed herself savagely. She’d acted like Emily. Jumping in to help without thinking of the consequences. Being seen to use powerful magic by the students was bad enough, but being seen by the tutors… Lady Damia would talk, of course, and Mistress Jens would wonder why Nadine was such an incompetent in her class and yet so brilliant outside it. She kicked herself, mentally. She had to recover the situation, but how?
“They were annoying me,” she said, in a tone that would have earned her a slap if she’d used it to her mother. She wanted — she needed — to irritate the older woman. An irritated person wouldn’t think too clearly. “I can turn them back if you like.”
She cancelled the spell before the tutor could answer. The three girls screamed as they reverted to normal, stark naked. Nanette giggled, despite everything, as they tried to cover themselves, grab for their clothes, curtsey to the tutor and run like the wind, all at the same time. The embarrassment of being turned into frogs was nothing compared to being stripped in public. There’d been a boy at Mountaintop who liked casting strip-spells on girls. What the girls had done to him was still talked about in whispers…
Lady Damia froze the girls with a icy look, then glared at Nantette. “Do you think it is fair to pick on girls two years your junior?”
Nanette could have pointed out, rather sardonically, that the girls had been doing the same… worse, perhaps, because Lillian had far less magic than any of them. But Nadine would have whined…
“It’s not fair,” she said. “I… they… they were annoying me.”
“I see.” Lady Damia studied her for a long moment. “You have a lot to learn. Let’s see… you will not attend the flying display. You can perform a month of detentions, assigned by your roommate. And you will report to the gym mistress this evening, after dinner.”
Emily would have gotten away with it, Nanette thought, sullenly. The punishments would have rankled, if she’d cared about them. She’d have put forward better excuses too.
“Yes, My Lady,” she said, as snidely as she could. It would definitely irritate the older woman. “I…”
“You can report to the gym mistress now, if you like,” Lady Damia said. It was an order and there was no point in trying to deny it. “And you can spend the next few months mentoring this girl. You might have something useful to teach her.”
Nanette gritted her teeth. She wasn’t sure why she’d intervened. She’d seen worse things in her life. And now… she didn’t need another complication. Time spent with Lillian was time she couldn’t spend planning her heist. She had a nasty feeling the tutors would be watching the mentorship closely. They had to be concerned about what a bratty princess might be teaching her charge.