The Princess in the Tower by Christopher Nuttall

Author:Christopher Nuttall [Nuttall, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, sorcerers, magic, New Adult, magicians, alternate world
ISBN: 9781606193327
Publisher: Twilight Times Books
Published: 2018-05-02T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

THE PIECE OF PAPER WAS COVERED in notes.

Emily rubbed her eyes, trying to work out the ache as she stood and poured herself a cup of cold water. She knew she was good at working out magical equations, but the spellwork she’d sketched out was an order of magnitude more complex than anything she’d done at Whitehall. The basic idea was simple enough–and she thought she could cast most of the spells without setting off any alarms–but the execution was going to be very difficult.

And there’s not going to be any time to practice, she thought, sourly. She’d considered suggesting that they go somewhere well away from the city to experiment, but neither of the boys would have gone for it. They would have had a point, too. The gates were under increasing scrutiny in the wake of the riot. We’re only going to get one shot at this.

She paced the room for a long moment, feeling old. A single mistake would doom them, which meant that every last piece of spellwork had to be checked and checked again before it was slotted into place. And then she would have to test the spellware as much as she could without actually triggering the spell. She thought it would hold together, once they started to actually trigger the spell, but she didn’t know for sure. Too much power would be unleashed in too short a space of time for her to be certain.

And we have to get the chat parchments set up, she added, as she stopped beside the next table and looked down. Getting the parchment hadn’t been easy. It had always been expensive and, with the development of paper, supplies had dwindled drastically. We can’t afford a mistake with those either.

She sat down at the table and tested the latest set of parchments. The king’s spies–Jade had warned everyone, time and time again, that they couldn’t assume they’d weeded out all the spies–wouldn’t think there was anything odd in producing chat parchments for the Levellers, although they’d certainly want a word with the magicians doing it. Chat parchments offered enough of a tactical advantage, particularly for an underground group, to ensure that no one would consider that they might be used for something else. There was a risk in producing them, particularly without blood magic being used to bind the parchments to a single set of users, but it was one that had to be endured. They couldn’t risk meeting too many people.

It should work, she told herself. She didn’t fully understand the magic binding two sets of parchment together, but it was relatively simple. And wards can’t block them.

She felt a flicker of sour admiration for the magicians who’d improved on the original design, even though they’d nearly gotten her–and Caleb’s entire family–killed. It was a neat piece of work and quite tricky to reverse-engineer, although she had the advantage of knowing it was possible. The spells could be used to allow her to hack the wards from the inside, as long as one piece of parchment was inside the wards.

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