She stepped forward. “You hoped she’d kill me, didn’t you?”
“I had every faith in you,” Sir Blackley managed. “And you survived…”
“Yes,” Emily said. She spoke as if she were pronouncing a death sentence. “You manipulated me. You pushed me to go find the witch and save the boy, in hopes I’d be killed. And you were wrong.”
And the worst thing about it, she added silently, is that I would have gone anyway.
“I did nothing of the sort,” Sir Blackley said. It was too obviously a lie. Trying to get his charge killed was one thing, trying and failing was quite another. King Randor was not going to be pleased. Sir Blackley would be a laughing stock, if he survived. Emily would be quite within her rights to kill him on the spot and they both knew it. “I will say as much to my king.”
“I could turn you into a toad right now,” Emily said. “Or worse.”
She held his gaze. “Take your horse and go back to the king. Report to him what you did and how it worked out. And then, submit to his judgement.”
Sir Blackley bowed deeply, then darted past her and through the door. Emily’s lips twitched in dark amusement. Sir Blackley would either do as he was told, and probably be stripped of his rank and title if he wasn’t beheaded, or gallop to the nearest border in hopes of fleeing the kingdom before Emily reported to King Randor. Either way, existence as he knew it was over.
You were very gentle with him, a voice said, at the back of her mind. It sounded a lot like Cornelia. You could have killed him on the spot.
I could, Emily answered. But this way, whatever choice he makes, it will be his.
She frowned, then headed to her room. She’d spend another night in the inn, after passing on Cornelia’s message, then make her way to the next village. And then…
I did the right thing, she told herself. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?
Afterthoughts
A critic, reading the Schooled in Magic books, complained that Emily was too nice, certainly when compared to the other characters. To which I replied, she’s the product of our world. She does not think she is inherently superior to everyone else, or that she has an inherent right to rule; she does not think her subjects are her chattels and that they have to do as she says; she has a modern system of values and regards practices like corporal punishment, arranged and forced marriages, slavery and aristocracy with entirely understandable horror. In a sense, unlike Elliot of Stuck in Magic, she has a certain degree of latitude to take risks, but it tends to pay off for her. She gets people, particularly servants, to like her because she treats them as human beings.
Emily also has a relatively strong morale centre, first shaped by our world and then by her experiences elsewhere. She would entirely understand why Professor Snape, for example, dislikes Harry Potter, but — at the same time — she would understand that his dislike is not an excuse for mistreating Harry. In Anoria, she would agree with Cordelia Cooper that the girl really shouldn’t have been spying on her, yet she would insist the girl did not deserve a de facto death sentence. It is entirely possible to have legitimate grounds for dislike — or anger — without justifying a massively over-the-top retaliation.
I seriously considered setting a novel in Cockatrice, between Lessons in Etiquette and Study in Slaughter. It didn’t work out — most of my original ideas wound up going into Work Experience — but I decided this story would fit in nicely. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.