Chapter 1 #3
‘I say,’ even Percival spluttered, but Virginia ignored him. ‘That’s a valuable creature.’
‘Madam, please!’ The chancellor made a feeble protest, while the dean summoned several porters.
But none of them actually did anything to stop the vindictive harridan.
‘That’s quite enough!’ Portia lashed out, the magic at her fingertips amplified by adrenaline and outrage.
She had to do something, but she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to achieve.
Just to make Virginia stop. An unseen force grabbed the edge of the table and upended it.
Teacups and glasses went flying. Virginia shrieked as she was instantly soaked to the skin, drinks of every kind, including the entire contents of the punch bowl inundating her.
She recoiled, spluttering and inarticulate.
The backwash of magic ran around the room and surged back to its source, to Portia, like an incriminating finger of blame.
She sucked in a breath as it struck her, the sickening feeling slapping into the pit of her stomach.
The rebound of unfocused raw enchantment was the worst, everyone knew that.
And scholars were always meant to control themselves.
The room went terribly quiet.
Portia rushed to the centre of the debris, dropped to her knees, and picked up the dragon from where it had landed. It lay limp in her palm, drenched and so cold. Far too cold for a dragon. The wings flopped down on either side of her cradling hands.
A shadow fell over her, broad and terrible. She looked up into Virginia’s florid face, red with rage.
‘What were you thinking?’ Portia snarled, her own anger burning through her before she had a chance to consider what she had just done. Her magic sparked beneath her skin again, like a storm gathering.
‘Thinking?’ Virginia sneered. ‘I was putting down a dangerous animal. They’re dragons, you stupid girl. You have to take charge of—’
‘They are living beings and you were abusing her horribly. How dare you—’
The wrath of Lady Virginia Moorland turned itself on Portia instead and it was terrifying to behold.
Especially from the ground. For a moment Portia wondered if the woman would try to murder her next.
‘How dare I? How dare you, Portia Starling! You used undirected magic against a member of the royal court. You could have killed me. I’ll have you thrown out of the Academy for this.
I came here to reach out to you because I felt sure that studying here might mean you had developed some common sense the rest of your line lack, but obviously not.
Your entire family are a disgrace, holed up on that rock of an island.
The whole court talks about it. The queen and all her ladies are scandalised still.
You’re a national embarrassment, all of you.
They told me you were an up-and-coming scholar, an apothecary to be nurtured instead of a namby-pamby bleeding heart like your great-aunt.
Or worse, a traitor like your father. They said’ – she gestured at all the faculty members who were gazing on in horror, none of them saying a word or moving to intercept her – ‘that you weren’t like the rest of your odious clan, that you had control over the wild powers in your tainted blood.
I should have known better. Now, give me back my property. ’
She held out one bejewelled hand expectantly.
Portia drew the dragon in to her chest, determined to protect her.
The little creature flopped weakly in her hands, as if aware of what was being demanded and struggling to find the strength to escape again.
No matter how gently she tried to hold Jade, Portia knew the dragon was suffering.
But there was no way she was giving her back, not to someone like that.
She rose slowly to her feet and lifted her chin the better to face Lady Virginia Moorland down.
‘Absolutely not.’
Virginia’s mouth fell open in shock. ‘I beg your pardon.’
Portia glanced around the room, suddenly aware of everyone looking on.
Everyone. All the people who could assure her academic future.
Members of the royal court. Dignitaries from all over Shinael and beyond.
Milo was making frantic gestures to stop, to come away, to just do whatever the horrible old cow wanted. Jade moaned piteously.
It was like someone else slipped under Portia’s skin and spoke for her, in a voice that sounded frightening like her great-aunt.
‘Someone like you has absolutely no business whatsoever owning any kind of pet. Least of all a dragon. You are a disgrace, Virginia Moorland. You were a bully in school and you still are.’
Someone inhaled sharply. Portia had no idea who. There was a frantic whisper followed by a giggle. A definite giggle. Virginia’s face turned puce. For a moment she looked like she might actually explode.
‘Fine,’ she snarled at last. ‘Keep the cursed thing, if you want. Much good it will do you. It’s a runt and impossible to train.
Probably a mongrel. Just like you and all your family.
Better off exiled to your mad aunt’s pound.
Like calls to like, they say. Barkley, fetch my cloak and call for my carriage.
I’m leaving.’ She turned away, took in the chaos around her, all the staring faces, and seemed to compose herself.
Her voice steadied and suddenly, it sounded like the voice of the royal court itself, the voice of the queen she served so closely.
‘You all saw her. You saw how she incited the little beast. Dean Fuller, I want her sacked. Otherwise, the Academy will not get a single coin of the association’s funding for any of its programmes.
And I shall be speaking to the queen about this imminently.
You’ll be lucky if we don’t cut off all funding entirely. And if we do, it will be due to her.’
And then she was gone, leaving Portia standing there, the centre of all the blame, holding a waterlogged dragon no bigger than her hand.