There, she learns the locals believe that s… More. Book 1. Schooled in Magic by Christopher G. Emily is a teenage girl pulled from our world into… More. Want to Read. Shelving menu. Shelve Schooled in Magic. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Rate it:. Book 2. Lessons In Etiquette by Christopher G. After completing her first year of learning magic … More.
Shelve Lessons In Etiquette. Book 3. Study in Slaughter by Christopher G. Brimming with new ideas for magical research, Emil… More. Shelve Study in Slaughter. Book 4. Work Experience by Christopher G. Shelve Work Experience. Book 5. A plot is being hatched at Mountaintop Academy, a … More. Shelve The School of Hard Knocks.
Book 6. Love's Labor's Won by Christopher G. Two families, alike in dignity Shelve Love's Labor's Won. Book 7. Trial By Fire by Christopher G. After a brief visit to the Blighted Lands, in hope… More. Shelve Trial By Fire. Book 8. Wedding Hells by Christopher G. She vows to do whatever it takes to avenge her beloved sister, Vittoria.
The first rule in the court of the Wicked? Trust no one. With back-stabbing princes, luxurious palaces, mysterious party invitations, and conflicting clues about who really killed her twin, Emilia finds herself more alone than ever before. Can she even trust Wrath, her one-time ally in the mortal world. Emilia will be tested in every way as she seeks a series of magical objects that will unlock the clues of her past and the answers she craves. A determined archaeologist.
Three days to find true love. And somehow, the sexy king steps from his sarcophagus very much alive. Lust soon overpowers reason as I fall down the rabbit hole with Wyre. He claims me completely—my mind, body, and soul. We only have three days to break a 4,year-old curse placed on him by his crazy ex. All books in the Supernatural Love Stories in the Absurd Series are stand-alone and can be read in any order. She's cursed. He's damned.
Together, they make one hell of a team. Emma Monroe is a Siren, cursed by the gods and bound to earth to atone for an ancient failure.
Now that she works missing persons cases for the FBI, it could be just a rescue away. Unless her new partner leads her astray. But that leaves each of them vulnerable, and there are lines partners should not cross.
As secrets are revealed and more women go missing, one thing becomes clear: as they race to save the victims, Emma and Zack risk losing themselves. Or should she pick a nickname And Imaiqah sounded vaguely Arabic. Imaiqah smiled, brightly. First day? Madame Razz had said that Imaiqah was a first year student too. She stepped over to the bed and held out a hand for Emily to shake. What do you intend to specialize in? He might not have understood that her world had no magic at all and therefore also had no specialized magicians as this world knew them.
Imaiqah saw the book on the bed before Emily could answer, her eyes going wide. Emily hesitated, and then admitted the truth. Imaiqah stared at her, as if she suspected that Emily was lying.
Imaiqah nodded in sympathy. The door opened again before Emily could say a word, revealing a tall, dark-skinned girl with a scowl on her face. Imaiqah ignored the question as the door banged closed. Emily heard her tone and understood, instantly, that Aloha considered herself the Alpha female in the room. She was a second year, whatever that meant. The mushy girls boarding school books her mother had owned had suggested that senior girls could punish younger girls at will.
Up close, she reeked of magic She dumped a bag onto her bed and stalked past them, into the bathroom. Emily watched the door close and then glanced at Imaiqah, who looked a little frightened. No doubt her roommate bullied her, she decided, or at the very least considered associating with a first year to be undesirable.
Aloha might have magic, but she was still very human. I once picked up one of her books and ended up frozen to the floor until she came back and released me. Emily stared at her, and then looked down at the stone floor. A dull gong echoed through the building and she looked up.
Emily wanted to say no. She wanted to stay and hide in the room until the sense of weirdness - of being out of place - faded away, but she was hungry. She nodded once, pushing the book of spells Void had given her under the bed, and then picked up her new robes, pulling them over the robes she already wore, even though Madame Razz had effectively stated that non-school clothes were forbidden. But there was no time to change. She should have changed while waiting for her roommates, but the sense of weirdness had just grown stronger and stronger.
Imaiqah picked up a book from her bedside table, then led the way back out into the corridor. There were dozens of students outside, all wearing robes of different colors, several old enough to be adults. In fact, Emily realized as she looked from face to face, some students looked to be barely entering their teens, while others seemed to be in their twenties. A handful of them carried wands, or staffs; a couple carried broomsticks and one carried what looked like a gnarled club of wood.
Or maybe there were so many pupils at the school that no one could hope to know them all. They walked out of the dorm and down a long flight of stairs.
Emily said nothing, staring around her. Every time the castle seemed to make sense, something happened to confuse her again. Another seemed to be a living plant, with green skin and twigs in place of hair.
And a third She looked like the pictures of Medusa from the role-playing games, the ones that had been modeled on the legends of Ancient Greece.
Their society prefers to have nothing to do with the Allied Lands. Emily actually felt her head spin as she tried to wrap her mind around the concept. Classes with a Gorgon? Could she turn people into stone?
They left the Gorgon behind and, eventually, reached a huge doorway which led into a massive dining room. There were tables everywhere, all crammed with students who were stuffing their faces with all sorts of food, served on giant platters.
Bright balls of fire hung high overhead, casting warm light over the dining hall. They seemed a varied lot; a handful looked like traditional wizards, complete with robes and pointy hats, while others looked even stranger. One even looked like a wicked witch, gimlet eyes flashing as she stroked her cat and eyed her students sardonically.
Another looked alarmingly like Red Sonja. Imaiqah pointed her towards the line of pupils waiting for food, jostling one another as the line slowly advanced towards a hole in the wall.
The food smelled strange to Emily, but it was from another universe. Emily looked around and saw a tall girl sneering at them. The speaker had long white-blonde hair, surrounding a china doll face that could only be described as patrician.
Before she could think of anything to say, the strange new girl went on. But because she was new here, she swallowed the response that came to mind and attempted to ignore the newcomer. She had the regal dignity act down pat, Emily had to admit, even if she did seem a little surprised. Had she thought that Emily would know her? Maybe a genuine monarch, with years on the throne of her country, could have pulled off the regal act, but Alassa sounded more like she was posturing rather than actually being dignified.
Besides, the self-styled Heir to the Throne of Zangaria probably knew much more magic than Emily. Alassa is their royal princess and will be Queen one day, may the gods help them. But she is the social queen of the school and is not inclined to actually make friends The people were definitely human, regardless of their magic or their odd appearance. Imaiqah hesitated, then tried to answer. Before she could ask, Imaiqah went on.
So she sat there, silent. Emily knew the unspoken truth behind every kid who took a gun to school and opened fire at random. It was rather unlikely that a prince would want to marry her, and she had no family here. She started to eat the stew while studying the other students. Apart from white, black, brown and yellow skins, there were students who were green-skinned, or blue, one so bright a blue that it had to have been a magical accident of some kind. And a number of students seemed to be the products of mixed-race marriages, as she knew them from back home, and others seemed to be part-human hybrids.
One older student looked to be part-Orc, not unlike the characters from the role-playing games. Another was a dark-skinned elf-like humanoid who looked far too thin to be human. There were herbs that sent odd tingling sensations running down her tongue; the meat itself tasted like a vague cross between beef and pork. She wondered if they were targeted by the magical students for practical jokes on a regular basis.
Imaiqah pointed out some of the tutors as they ate. The man beside him is General Kip; he teaches combat magic and battle strategy. He assigns the worst detentions in the school. Emily jumped as a hand fell on her shoulder. She turned to see a stern woman looking down at her from a great height. Her face could have been carved from stone, seeming as if it were permanently fixed in a disapproving expression.
You will report to me in my office tomorrow at nine bells. There was something about Irene that warned her to be careful. In some ways, she reminded her of Madame Razz, but with far more power.
Tomorrow she starts studying in earnest. She stalked off towards the end of the table to deliver a reprimand to another student, leaving Emily staring after her. Imaiqah shrugged and changed the subject. But the thought continued to bother Emily as they returned to their room and prepared for bed.
If Irene was so severe, how was Emily ever going to relax in her presence? It made sense. And the Grandmaster had warned Emily that students could die in Whitehall. Imaiqah had escorted her to the office after breakfast and then left, pleading an early class.
Emily lifted her hand to the door and then hesitated. Mistress Irene apparently faced down a necromancer with nothing more than a sharp tongue and a complete refusal to surrender to the dark wizard. After meeting Shadye, Emily had an idea of just how much courage that had to have taken.
Bracing herself, she tapped on the door. There was a long pause, just long enough for her to wonder if Mistress Irene was somewhere else, and then the door swung open, silently. Emily stepped inside and saw a simple office, with walls lined by shelves crammed with books.
Mistress Irene was seated at her desk, studying a sheet of parchment. She pointed one long finger at a chair and motioned for Emily to sit. Some of them shimmered with brilliant magic. That makes you dangerous. You must learn to control your magic as quickly as possible. Losing control could be disastrous. There was a pause. You may go by your first name, if you wish, or you may select something else you wish to be called. Emily alone, it seemed, would be safe to use.
Her surname had never been spoken in this new world. Besides, it was her name. Magic is powered by mana. Your body produces mana. Emily stared at her. Did her body produce mana itself, or was she drawing on an energy field surrounding the new world?
Or both? Perhaps the human race produced the power that kept dragons aloft Overpowering your spells will result in disaster. There was a long pause. She picked up a piece of paper and passed it over to Emily, who looked down at it, puzzled.
Simple, because the spells help steer the magic in the right direction; complex, because you have to tie the two together in your mind. Emily nodded, carefully. The letters she was looking at seemed a cross between Arabic and Chinese. Emily blinked in surprise as her tutor continued. It is vitally important that you never relax while casting spells, even when you become proficient enough to cast them without verbalizing. A single mistake can be disastrous. Using a different language forces you to think.
Can you feel the spells? The wand seemed to sparkle in her hand, as if it were alive. Emily felt it twisting like a snake, even though she could see no sign of independent movement. Holding onto the wand was tricky, but the more she held it, the more she was aware of And as she became aware of them, she became aware of the mana inside her, waiting to be released. Her magic seemed to be crackling with life. Emily reached out with her mind, unsure of what she was doing.
The spell glittered in her mind, but it seemed frustratingly insubstantial, as if the spell existed only in potential. An engine, she reasoned, but one that required fuel to run. The trick was to draw the mana from inside her body and use it to power the spell. Her power seemed to stop at her skin Something clicked in her mind. Power shimmered out of her and into the wand; a moment later, the spell blazed with light in her mind and vanished.
Emily opened her eyes, unsure of just when she had closed them, and saw a shimmering image of herself hanging in the air. She let out a yelp in shock, just before the image vanished into nothingness. Emily put it together, slowly. The trick was learning how to issue basic orders. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, right into the wand.
The spell was just waiting for her It flared to life in her mind and, when she opened her eyes, she saw a second image of herself. This one seemed alarmingly substantial. Her head started to spin a moment later as it glowed brighter. Something was draining the mana out of her body. Mistress Irene muttered a word. The image snapped out of existence.
A moment later, the sense of being drained faded away. Emily rocked back on her chair. The spell It had just kept draining power from her until Mistress Irene had cancelled it. What would have happened if the spell had kept draining her? Would it have killed her outright, or merely knocked her out for a few hours?
Magicians, even sorcerers, have been known to kill themselves through trying to use a spell before checking it carefully. Do not try to use any spell until you see how it goes together. She stood up and picked a book off the shelves. It will only last a couple of months, but by then you should be capable of renewing it for yourself.
Emily shifted uncomfortably as Mistress Irene muttered several words into the air, moving her hand in a complicated gesture. She felt It was all she could do to remain still until the spell was completed. The spell was so uncomfortable that it could never be a permanent solution. The Grandmaster had been right. She would have to learn to read the local language, just as soon as she possibly could.
The next hour passed very slowly as Emily puzzled over the building blocks of magic. Spells, Mistress Irene explained carefully, were made up of smaller spells; it was possible to memorize a more advanced spell, but without an understanding of the underpinning spells it would be impossible to progress any further.
Looking at the magic words, Emily was reminded of a simple computer language, one that ran in her brain. One of her nerdy friends had bought an ancient computer and experimented with one of the earliest computer languages, before graduating to more complex systems. She was sure that he would have had little difficulty in learning to cast spells because of how familiar he was with arcane computer languages. Emily scowled, feeling her head starting to pound. Writing down a magic spell was sometimes exactly the same as casting it, sometimes not.
Worse yet, it took several tries before she managed to learn how not to infuse power into the spells. According to Mistress Irene, mana was everywhere, allowing creatures to evolve into forms that could draw on it for themselves.
Maybe, just maybe, orcs and goblins were humans who had been warped into something inhuman by exposure to the magic field. Emily looked down at the spell and nodded, before carefully casting it out loud. The room seemed to dim for a moment, just before a number of objects started to shimmer with an eerie red glow.
She looked around, noticing the spells on the desk, the bookshelves, the globe and crystal ball in the corner Some of them looked harmless, even in the red light, but a number looked downright ominous. She had the distant feeling that trying to take a book off the shelves without permission would be very dangerous. The red glow surrounding the goblet faded away into nothingness, leaving her looking down at a harmless object.
Naturally, removing the more complex trap spells is a great deal harder. Emily nodded. There would be no point in using any sort of spell to keep her property private if it could simply be dispelled. She wondered, absently, what they actually did to intruders. Freeze them in place, transform them into something else Whitehall might take a more relaxed attitude to students injuring themselves and others than any school she knew back home, but there had to be limits.
The second hour passed far more quickly than the first as Mistress Irene pushed her into memorizing and practicing a dozen different spells. One of them was a very simple defensive spell, enough to deflect many hexes and charms away from her body and soul.
Emily shivered at the implications of students needing to know that spell as quickly as possible, forcing herself to keep it firmly in her mind. Another spell checked to ensure that a potion was safe to drink, although Mistress Irene warned her that it only picked up on potions that were lethal; she could still become very ill from drinking the wrong potion.
Her eyes narrowed. If you feel unwell, or headachy, stop casting spells and rest; eat something sweet to replenish your energy. The kitchen staff will provide you with something to eat if necessary. Her head already felt uncomfortable; when she stood up, her legs suddenly weakened and she had to grab the chair to keep herself from falling over.
But you have to test out of them before you can proceed. Emily glanced down at the paper. It was a class schedule, written out in a neat, precise hand. The school day was divided up into eight periods, seven of them assigned to actual studies and one assigned for lunch.
There were thirty minutes between classes, either to keep the students from becoming exhausted by giving them a chance to get something to eat, or to ensure that if one class ran late there would be no delay for the second class. Emily gulped; she liked Imaiqah, but she had the feeling that Aloha would be much less willing to help a newcomer explore the school. Depending on how you progress, you may be moved up to a more advanced class within the next two months.
The schedule listed a dozen different classes for a first year, including Alchemy, Charms, Cryptozoology, Divination and Ethics.
Two periods on Tuesday and Thursday had simply been marked sport. Emily scowled at the thought. Mistress Irene smiled. You do have potential. The tutor laughed. Do you know how long it took me to master it? Mistress Irene shook her head. Perhaps she even had a heart of gold.
He was a short, elderly man with long white hair, wearing a pair of spectacles through which he peered suspiciously at his students. Another student jumped up almost before the first speaker had finished. Professor Locke smiled. The Battle of Janus was fought out between Umbria and Holm for domination of the city of Janus, and the trade routes that ran through the Janus mountain range. While Umbria was pushed back, allowing Holm to claim a victory, the battle was so costly that reinforcements from Umbria were able to push Holm back out of the city within the month.
Emily considered the question while the more nationalistic of her classmates argued the point. One of them is on history. No Kingdom or City-State shares the same view of history, which can be irritating if one happens to be a historian. The elves were magic, the elves were formidable It was our time, we believed, and we no longer wanted to be dominated by the Fair Folk.
So we warred with them until they were driven back into their hidden settlements and built the First Empire in the rubble of their empire. We could have reached out to the orcs and goblins, offshoots of humanity created by the elves. Instead, also we warred with them, forcing them into an alliance with the remaining elves. Many years later, they returned and waged war on the First Empire itself. They destroyed the First Empire. Had that been the result of the war against the elves, or had it had a far darker cause?
Millions died as fire-drakes blew their poisonous breath over human settlements, and giant crabs emerged from the seas to destroy harbors while mermen sank ships in the ocean.
The only solution seemed to be to reach for far greater magic and so we did. We discovered that we could use murder to power our spells and use them to strike back against the elves. Eventually, we rallied and drove the elves to the brink of extinction.
The necromancers were unable to channel the vast power they possessed without going mad, becoming monsters in human form. Eventually, they attempted to take over the Second Empire.
The battle to stop them also shattered any hope of establishing a new human unity. Why not a willing sacrifice? Would it have made any difference if the sacrifices had volunteered themselves to the necromancers? But Shadye had definitely been insane. Professor Locke nodded towards the map on the wall. Emily studied it with interest; the continents bore little resemblance to anything she remembered from her own world.
One vast continent was roughly the size of Europe, Asia and America put together, while a smaller continent to the south was little bigger than Australia. They did know that their world was a sphere. Thirty-two states were part of the Allied Lands, if she was reading the map correctly. Most of them were grouped to the north of the largest continent, with a handful in the smaller continent and islands. The battle to stop the necromancers might as well have been fought with atomic bombs.
It might even have been kinder in the long run. Their threat is overwhelming; given enough time, they will produce more armies of monsters to turn against us and crush the Allied Lands. The only thing that has saved us so far is their disunity.
We cannot expect them to remain disunited forever. Their disunity? Emily wondered. We could offer to dicker with them if they fought each other He tapped a darkened patch on the map.
Eventually, Halers was so badly wracked by civil war that the necromancer was able to walk in and take over. Now, it is a source of monsters and magical sacrifices for the necromancers, all because a king was foolish enough to believe that a necromancer could be bribed into good behavior.
We cannot negotiate with the necromancers. All we can do is muster our own power and prepare for the coming struggle. If the necromancers managed to cooperate long enough to mount a major offensive, they could drive up through the mountains and split the Allied Lands in half. And then they could turn their attention to the other continents. They have been known to lash out at each other without premeditation, as well as planning betrayals for reasons that only make sense in their own addled minds.
Their power levels also slowly kill them as their brains cannot tolerate the pressure they put on them for long. As they grow older, they are forced to channel more and more power to keep themselves alive, slowly becoming undead lich-creatures. The true horror of necromancy is that eventually they will run out of humans to sacrifice and die out, leaving the land behind them a waste.
Emily spoke before she could think better of it. Professor Locke studied her for a long moment, thoughtfully. His gaze was disconcerting.
Back home, she would rarely have been called to justify herself to anyone at school. They had to have realized that necromancy would eventually exterminate the entire human race. But the elves might have given them the idea knowing that the human race would either have to abandon necromancy or destroy itself.
Either way, they would win. He leaned back, thoughtfully. Emily knew better than to continue the argument. And if necromancy had made the difference between victory or defeat, even the alien-minded Fair Folk of fantasy novels would have hesitated before giving such a weapon to humanity.
Unless they believed that humanity would discover it for themselves anyway That way led madness and a lifetime of raving about conspiracy theories on the internet. A burly-looking male student put up his hand. It bound the Allied Lands together into a united force to defend us against necromancers. Emily could guess at the answer, but left another student to try her luck.
His ears were sharper than Emily had realized; his tone promised an unpleasant experience for the nationalist. The Professor looked back at the first speaker. Several students exchanged glances, before another girl raised her hand. He pointed towards the map. Emily remembered Alexander the Great, and what had happened after his death in Babylon. His Companions, once his loyal followers, had divided his colossal empire up amongst themselves and tried to create their own dynasties.
An empire that had spanned much of the known world had been reduced to a handful of squabbling kingdoms, which had eventually been absorbed by the Roman Empire.
Now she had said it out loud, she was confident that it was the right answer. He looked around the classroom, leaving Emily flushing in embarrassment. Right now, we have a major problem: we have to hold the line at multiple different points, knowing that if we lose one we may well lose everything.
Emily nodded to herself. Could they surrender the large continent and leave the necromancers to die when they ran out of sacrifices? She doubted it; Void had demonstrated that teleportation was possible, which suggested that the necromancers would be able to teleport entire armies right around the world Surely, the Allied Lands would have fallen a long time ago if the necromancers could teleport with impunity.
She took another look at the map. It seemed to her that they must survive through a combination of geography and luck, neither of which would apply if the necromancers could teleport. Emily shook her head, dragging her attention back to the Professor. If you would prefer to spend these periods studying something else, you may choose to withdraw from my class and work quietly in the library.
Later, should you change your mind, you may attend classes for younger students. He smiled, rather ruefully. The development of magic from the early days until the basic rules were discovered by the great research sorcerers. How and why magic changed the course of history. The origin of the great wars with the elves, goblins, orcs and the other semi-human races. The history of magical artifacts, including legends of invincible wands, swords carried only by true kings and even stranger objects from before the dawn of recorded history.
Many of you will prefer to storm out of the class rather than accept that other versions of history exist. He glanced at his watch. You will be marked as absent, but there will be no punishment. Your ignorance will be punishment enough. Emily understood, although she suspected that few others in the class shared her understanding. It was easy to see that she had to learn as quickly as possible, if only to ensure that she knew what she was talking about in the future.
How could they? He was quite right, really; their ignorance was likely to cost them dearly in the future. Emily rose to her feet and headed towards the door, following the other students.
One of them caught her arm and held it tightly. The others surrounded her, preventing any retreat. It was a trap. Author Bio Christopher G.
Chris has been involved in the online Alternate History community since ; in particular, he was the original founder of Changing The Times, an online alternate history website that brought in submissions from all over the community.
Later, Chris took up writing and eventually became a full-time writer. They can both be downloaded from his site. Christopher Nuttall. All rights reserved by the author. Please do not copy without permission. I think they were hoping I'd know some great secret to success that I could tell them. Emily has, though she never imagined being sucked into the strange new land by a necromancer bent on stealing the power of a Child of Destiny. Her mom's name is Destiny.
But when Emily escapes, meets a powerful sorcerer, and goes off to study magic we are left to wonder whether she is a true Child of Destiny. Schooled in Magic is a fun new take on an otherworld fantasy that brings magic to life.
By the end of this book, the reader will feel as if he has been schooled in magic himself. Yet the story has clearly only begun. More please! A special note to TTB readers. All contents of this web site are copyright by the writers, artists or web site designer. If you discover any artwork or writing published here elsewhere on the internet, or in print magazines, please let us know immediately.
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