Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) Read Free

were filling, but the best of them tasted like cardboard. Sergeant Harkin had remarked that they were meant to encourage soldiers to forage and live off the land, rather than draining the army’s resources by eating the bars. One of the students had asked if the bars served as an excuse for mutiny and earned himself five hundred push-ups for cheek. The sergeant had never actually answered the question.
    She shook her head. “Do you want to walk all the way to the peak?”
    “We can try,” Jade said. “Or maybe we can just walk up to the lake instead.”
    The air surrounding Whitehall was pure, clear of anything that might signify the presence of a technologically-advanced society. Emily knew enough to appreciate the wonders of technology, particularly after having to live without it for several months, but there were times when she wondered if she was doing the right thing by trying to jumpstart the industrial revolution on her new world. Inhaling the air argued against it…but the sheer depth of human suffering argued for it. Those living without magic had lives that were nasty, brutal and short. Even the aristocracy, with access to magicians if they couldn’t work magic themselves, lived in squalor, at least when compared to Earth.
    They chatted about nothing in particular as they walked out of the school’s grounds and up towards Mount Sunset. It was a strange place, even by the standards of her new world, but it was reasonably safe as long as walkers didn’t stay there after dark. Emily saw strange flickers of… something darting through the air, hovering right on the very edge of perception. It wasn’t unknown for climbers to discover they couldn’t reach the peak, or that their path twisted on itself so that they found themselves starting up the mountain and then realizing that they’d reached the bottom of the path. There were even stranger tales, but none that had been verified. And if the staff had believed it wasn’t reasonably safe, they would never have allowed the students to go near the mountain.
    “I’ve been offered a chance to stay at the school as an assistant,” Jade said, suddenly. “I did well enough in alchemy that Professor Thande thinks I have potential. ”
    Emily made a face. Alchemy required talents she didn’t have, which was at least partly why she was burning her caldron every second lesson. Thande wasn’t a bad teacher, but his lessons clashed with Emily’s upbringing, where precisely counting the number of times one stirred a caldron didn’t matter. She was still puzzling over the fact that it did seem to matter to Alchemy. A numbing potion worked perfectly if you mixed the ingredients over a low heat and stirred fifty-seven times. It failed if you stirred fifty-six or fifty-eight times.
    “There are a few other tutors that want a teaching assistant too, at least for a year,” Jade added. He looked down at her. “Do you think I should stay?”
    “I’d miss you if you left,” Emily admitted, honestly. She didn’t have enough friends to casually accept the chance of losing touch with one of them. But on the other hand…“What do you actually want?”
    “I want to be a combat sorcerer,” Jade admitted. “Helping to tutor at the school might be a step backwards. I just don’t know.”
    Emily didn’t know either. The Allied Lands seemed to consider a person’s ability to do the job as well as just their qualifications, something she found rather more sensible than the focus on qualifications back home. She could see tutoring serving as useful experience for a combat sorcerer, but in truth she simply didn’t know. But she knew who might be able to offer proper advice.
    “You could ask the sergeant,” she suggested. Miles was a trained and experienced combat sorcerer, one of the best. He had to be the best to be trusted to teach potential sorcerers. “He would know what you should do.”
    Jade frowned. “But what if he sees it as a lack of confidence?”
    “I