Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling by Christopher Nuttall Page A

that the charms were working properly. It wasn’t the only oddity. Unconscious magic helped children to heal quickly, even without immediate medical care, but there were definite signs that her charge hadn’t healed quickly. She scowled, feeling knowledge from a thousand medical textbooks spinning through her head; there were signs that magic had been used to treat him, but it was external magic. A mundane who had been treated by the druids would have shown the same results.
    And his body showed the faint disturbance caused by one too many transfigurations. The spells used weren’t dangerous , not in the sense that they could accidentally kill , but so many transfigurations had to have inflicted some damage. Elaine shivered, remembering the day Millicent had turned her into a frog for a week, back at the Peerless School. If her readings were accurate, this young man had gone through much worse ...
    “But if you’re related to Duncan Conidian,” Elaine said, out loud, “why didn’t you defend yourself?”
    Maybe he couldn’t , her own thoughts answered her. No wand, no school robes ... and you never saw him in the Great Library. What does that suggest?
    She shivered. Not seeing him in the library proved nothing; she wasn’t sociable enough to wander the halls and reading rooms, chatting to students. That was Vane’s job. Added together, however, it was starting to suggest a very disturbing picture. Absently, she tried to find out why the young man was still asleep and found nothing. She couldn’t help remembering the days after she’d been turned into a Bookworm. She’d been stunned for several days too.
    There was a knock at the door, which opened to reveal Dread. The Inquisitor looked as stony-faced as ever, but Elaine knew him well enough to realise that he was tired and not entirely happy with the world. Elaine cancelled her charms and looked over at him, wondering what he’d found out. And, for that matter, just what had happened outside the palace.
    “His name is Johan, Johan Conidian,” Dread said. His voice was almost devoid of emotion, another sure sign that he was more tired than he wanted to let on. “And he’s a Powerless.”
    Elaine shook her head. “There’s magic in there,” she said. “Very odd magic, but it is there.”
    She scowled as Dread started to cast his own charms, feeling a moment of pity for the young man. The Conidian Family was powerfully magical; if Johan was genuinely powerless, his life must have been hellish. Elaine might have been a low-power magician, but she was still a magician. A Powerless wouldn’t be any sort of magician ... and, born to a magical family, would get absolutely no respect. No wonder he’d been transfigured so often. His brothers and sisters must have thought of him as a permanent target for their pranks.
    The Peerless School encouraged a limited amount of pranks – Elaine thought of it as bullying – in the hopes it would provide incentive for the prank victims to study and develop their magic. But all such pranks were supposed to be carried out in the school ... and targeted on other student magicians. Targeting a Powerless, one who couldn’t defend himself at all, was just evil . But it seemed that the Conidian had allowed it to happen. Had he thought, Elaine asked himself, that repeated pranks would encourage his son to develop magic? Or had he merely hated the living evidence of weakness in his bloodline?
    Dread finished casting charms and stepped backwards. “Wonderful,” he said, sardonically. “The last time I saw anything like this was when I first met you.”
    Elaine remembered. “But he wasn’t in the Great Library when it happened,” she pointed out, keeping her voice calm. Magical accidents that boosted – or weakened – someone’s power were rarely good news. There were times when she still marvelled that she had been allowed to wake up, after becoming a Bookworm. “I don’t think that any such spell could have affected