Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7) Read Online Free PDF

then - before she could have second thoughts - uncurled Aurelius from her neck and placed the snake on the floor. Aurelius sent a stream of discontented thoughts to her - Death Vipers didn’t like dust, it seemed - and then looked at the crystal. The images he sent to Emily were odd, like seeing through warped lenses, but she could see the path to the crystal.
    “You need to blind and deafen me,” she said, without looking at the Grandmaster. “It’s the only way to avoid being overwhelmed.”
    The Grandmaster gave her a sharp look - such hexes were banned at Whitehall, on pain of severe punishment - but jabbed a finger at her. Emily shuddered as the world went black and silent, then concentrated on the images from the snake. It was hard, so hard, to keep her mind focused with panic yammering at her, screaming that she should cancel his spell, but somehow she held herself together long enough to walk towards the crystal, guided by the snake. As soon as she was standing close to the charm, she cast the dispersal spell. Her eyes snapped back to normal, while the crystal lost its light.
    “Well done,” the Grandmaster said. “Very well done.”
    Emily beamed with pride. “I...”
    The world went dark. For a moment, she thought the blindness spell had reasserted itself, then she realized she was somewhere else, somewhere both dark and familiar. She opened her mouth to call out to the Grandmaster...
    ...And then froze as her stepfather walked into the light.

Chapter Three
    “Y OU WORTHLESS GIRL,” HE SNARLED. “Can’t you do anything right?”
    Emily could only stare at him, feeling her entire body trembling. Her stepfather looked larger than she recalled, his meaty fists pounding the air in front of him as he advanced towards her; no, she was smaller. She looked down at herself and realized she was barely a child of ten, chewing helplessly on her long hair and wearing second-hand clothes she’d bought or begged for herself from the charity shops. But she’d been an adult of nineteen...
    Her head swam. She’d been with the Grandmaster, hadn’t she? Or had she imagined everything? Her stepfather strode up to her, thrusting his face right into hers and breathing horrendous fumes of alcohol into her mouth. She cringed as he caught her arm, then shoved her to the floor. It felt solid - too solid - under her body.
    “Waste of fucking space,” he snapped. He loomed over her, glaring down. “Why I adopted you I will never know. You should have been a boy. A boy might have been fun.”
    Emily swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. He was there. He was always there. There was no point in looking to her mother for protection, not when her mother spent most of her life crashed out on the couch, watching TV and drinking heavily. Her stepfather could do whatever he liked to her and no one would do anything to help. A feeling of pure hopelessness overcame her, forcing her to curl into a ball...
    “Get up,” her stepfather snarled. He reached out, grabbed the front of her shirt and hauled her to her feet. “Wasting all your time in fantasies when there’s real work to do.”
    He slapped her across the face, hard. “Thinking you’re Harry fucking Potter, a magical little princess just waiting for the chance to go to your real parents,” he snapped. “Your father abandoned you, princess , and left you here with your worthless piece of trash drunkard of a mother. You’re pathetic! You waste your life in fantasy when you have work to do.”
    Emily staggered, her mind screaming at her. It was real, wasn’t it? She was older, much older, than the child she seemed now...and she had all the memories to prove it. But they felt translucent, as if they were nothing more than childish fantasies. She was suddenly unsure of anything beyond the fact that she was trapped in the room with a monster. Desperately, she looked around and saw her old living room, her mother lying on the couch and stoned out of her mind. Empty bottles