Infinite Regress Read Free

cold-hearted bureaucrat. But then, being given responsibility for an entire school had to change a man. And Whitehall was far more than just a school.
    Her eyes flickered, briefly around the office. It had changed too; the room was bare, save for a large wooden desk and a chair. A single scroll rested on the desk, but otherwise it was empty. The bookshelves and paintings had been removed, leaving the walls completely bare of anything to catch the eye. It served a double purpose, she realized, as the door closed behind her. There was nothing that would tell her anything about the room’s occupant, no hint as to his personality and disposition; there was also nothing that would distract her from him.
    Gordian studied her back with equal interest. “Lady Emily,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”
    I wasn’t aware I had a choice , Emily thought.
    She resisted the urge to say it aloud. Lady Barb had warned her to be on her best behavior, no matter what provocation she faced. The Grandmaster would seize on any excuse to expel her from Whitehall, casting her adrift to an uncertain future. Emily had no idea what she’d do, if she couldn’t return to Whitehall. Go to Mountaintop? Or try Stronghold? Caleb had told her too many horror stories about that school to make her want to go there unless she had no other choice.
    “I do not want you at this school,” Gordian said, bluntly. She’d expected it, but his words still stung badly. “You are a disruptive influence. Whitehall’s existence has been placed in danger, because of you. The Kingdom of Zangaria has been turned upside down, because of you. The Allied Lands themselves have been changed, because of you .”
    Emily kept her mouth firmly closed. It was true enough, she supposed, that Whitehall had been in danger because of her, but she hadn’t done any of it deliberately. She’d never even known about magic before Shadye had kidnapped her, let alone just how much power her knowledge—from a far more advanced world—gave her in the Allied Lands. And she had to admit that her ideas, her innovations, had wrought considerable change for good and ill. She’d unleashed forces that might never be tamed by the current ruling class.
    “You are reckless, headstrong and dangerous,” Gordian continued. His voice was calm, but she had no difficulty in hearing the underlying anger. “If it were up to me, you would have been expelled back in your second year. You chose to ignore rules devised for your safety and the safety of your fellow students. Grandmaster Hasdrubal should have expelled you on the spot. It set a poor precedent for later disciplinary action. Challenging a tutor to a duel...”
    “He manipulated me into challenging him,” Emily said, unable to keep her mouth closed any longer. “If he hadn’t wanted the duel, he could have refused the challenge...”
    “Yes, he could have,” Gordian agreed. He made an odd gesture with his hand; it took her a moment to recognize that he’d conceded her point. “But a student challenging a tutor does set a grim precedent.”
    Emily met his eyes. “And a tutor accepting a duel does... what ?”
    It was hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice, the grim awareness that Master Grey had meant to kill her leaking through. He would have killed her too, if she’d lost. And it would have been perfectly legal. There would have been some consequences for him, she was sure, but he could never have been charged with her murder. As far as the Allied Lands were concerned, an idiotic student would have been killed before she got anyone else in trouble.
    Gordian ignored her point. “And then you turned Zangaria upside down,” he said, repeating his earlier point. “Teleporting out of King Randor’s castle, tearing his wards down in the process... what do you think that did to his reputation?”
    “You’re the one who told me to divest myself of my holdings in Zangaria,” Emily pointed out. Hindsight told her she’d been