“Yes,” I agreed. We could quibble over the definitions later. “There’s nothing that can be done, legally. But we can step outside the law.”
Geraldine eyed me. “Is this anything to do with what they’re doing after class?”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“They’re slipping out, every second night, and not trying to be sneaky,” Geraldine said. “All of them … all aristos.”
I had to fight to hide my amusement—and annoyance. Geraldine had clearly noticed something … why hadn’t we? But then, it wasn’t as if we bedded down in the dorms. The housemaster reported to Boscha and … I frowned inwardly, wondering what—if anything—they’d told each other. Sneaking out of dorms and prowling the school at night was an old tradition. I knew housemasters who would turn a blind eye to students leaving the dorms on the grounds they needed to sharpen their skills elsewhere. My old housemaster had certainly pretended not to see us until we got to the bottom of the corridor.
“They’re up to something, aren’t they?” Alan met my eyes. “What are they doing?”
“Private lessons,” I said, flatly.
Geraldine sucked in her breath. She’d worked her ass off to catch up with the other students. She’d had no choice. Her merchant family hadn’t been able to give her the background knowledge she needed, let alone the training to make proper use of her magic from the moment she came into it. They might not even have realised she had magic until it started to manifest. She’d done well, she knew she had …
And yet, her eyes showed the despair of someone who’d just realised the game was rigged. Still rigged.
Alan cleared his throat, loudly. I felt a flicker of admiration. Alan was drawing my attention to him, in a manner that would be very difficult to overlook. He was risking a thrashing to ensure Geraldine would have a few moments to calm herself … impressive. Very impressive. I just hoped it wouldn’t bite him on the rear later.
“I have an offer for you two,” I said. “Private lessons of your own, from me and a couple of other teachers. You can catch up and surpass Walter and his friends.”
“Right,” Alan said. He sounded like a man who’d just been handed a gift horse and suspected he reallyshould look it in the mouth. “What’s in it for you?”
His friend nudged him again. “Alan!”
“It’s a sensible question,” I said, mildly. It was, too. “And to answer it, I don’t think it’s right they should have private lessons of their own.”
Geraldine frowned. “Does this have anything to do with Walter’s bragging?”
“What bragging?” I’d heard Walter brag about everything from his sexual conquests—I doubted he’d had so many; he’d have had no time for schooling—to the lands and wealth he would inherit when his father went to meet the gods. I had a private suspicion the old man’s life would be in danger the moment his son graduated, even though Walter had a trust fund that paid out—monthly—more money than most people would ever see in their lives. “What’s he been saying?”
“That things are going to be different,” Geraldine said. “And that I could be his concubine if he wished.”
“He wished,” I repeated. I didn’t like the sound of that. Most magicians were smart enough to realise that adding new blood to their family tree made them stronger, in the long run, but that didn’t always mean they treated newborn magicians well. My family hadn’t been very kind to my uncle’s wife, even though she’d given them three strong and powerful children to carry the bloodline into the next generation. “What else did he say?”
“A lot.” Geraldine’s cheeks heated. I guessed Walter had been crude, rude, and unappealing. “Mostly about things he wanted me to do to him.”
I almost smiled, despite the situation. It would be hilarious if Boscha’s plan unravelled because Walter couldn’t keep his fat mouth shut. The more people you added to your conspiracy, the greater the chance one of them would say the wrong thing and draw attention to your plans before it was too late. Boscha would have been wiser to use magic to seal their lips, although that might have drawn attention too. And yet, as Geraldine reluctantly outlined the specifics, I had to admit Walter hadn’t said anything too specific. It would be easy for someone to argue he’d just been an asshole.
“Yes. It is.” I leaned forward. “Do you want the lessons?”
Alan and Geraldine exchanged glances. I could tell what they were thinking. On one hand, without private lessons they were going to fall further and further behind; on the other, they had no idea what I really wanted, and they had no idea what I might get them into. There was no way I could reassure them either, or offer protection if the whole affair exploded in our face. I knew better than to make promises I couldn’t keep. Alan was too streetwise to be fooled.
“Yes,” Alan said, finally. “I’ll take them.”
Geraldine nodded. “Me, too.”
I allowed myself a tight smile. “Good,” I said. “You’ve both been very naughty and you’ve been given detention, Saturday morning. Mistress Constance has recruited me to assist with collecting certain ingredients she needs, and I’m assigning you to assist me. I’ll write something into the record book to account for it. If anyone asks, tell them I caught you whispering rude things about me.”
“Sir,” Geraldine said. “Does it have to be a detention? Can’t you come up with another excuse?”
And on Saturday morning, at that, I thought, wryly. Saturday detentions were the worst. You didn’t get to stay in bed until noon or … or anything, really. Walter was going to laugh his ass off when he found out, the prat. Hopefully, he wouldn’t wonder if there was something else going on. There’s no other way to do it.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “One other thing—who else do you think would be interested in private lessons?”
“Everyone who isn’t an aristo,” Alan said, flatly. “And that’s a lot of people.”
I nodded. “I’ll see you both at the rear door on Saturday. Nine in the morning. Do try not to be late.”
“Yes, sir,” Geraldine said, reluctantly.
“Do not discuss this on school grounds,” I warned. “The walls have ears. Don’t discuss it in town, either. If you must, go far into the forest or up the mountains and do it there.”
Geraldine looked pale. I thought I knew what she was thinking. The grandmaster—or anyone who knew how to access the wards—could look into the female dorms, or changing rooms, or showers … I didn’t think Boscha would do anything of the sort, and privacy was always in short supply at a boarding school, but it was still disconcerting. The aristos didn’t worry so much about those things. They grew up surrounded by servants, from birth to death. They didn’t have any privacy at all.
“Dismissed,” I said, quietly.
Alan and Geraldine nodded, then hurried off as I dispelled the wards and unlocked the door. I watched them go, knowing I was now committed. They’d told me … I didn’t like the sound, I really didn’t, of what Walter had been saying. The Supremacists had long argued that newborn woman should be turned into nothing more than broodmares, sharing their blood with the greater community without receiving anything in return, and Walter was the type of person to embrace that argument with great conviction. Personally, I suspected it would be disastrous—there would be all sorts of disputes over who was the legitimate heir to any given bloodline— but no one was interested in asking my opinion. The Supremacists—those that knew about my father—might even think my existence was proof they were right.