A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, #1)

by Naomi Novik

Some sorcerers get an affinity for weather magic, or transformation spells, or fantastic combat magics like dear Orion. I got an affinity for mass destruction.

My great-grandmother was just the first in a long line of people who meet me, smile, and then stop smiling, before I’ve even said a word.

It made me angry, but being angry’s always good for my work.

“You know, it’s almost impressive,” he said after a moment, sounding less wobbly. “You’re nearly dead and you’re still the rudest person I’ve ever met. You’re welcome again, by the way.”

My anger’s a bad guest, my mother likes to say: comes without warning and stays a long time.

So I don’t get to be safe. I don’t get to take a deep breath. I don’t even get to lie to myself that after I get out of here, I’ll be okay. I won’t be okay, and Mum won’t be okay if I stay with her, because the mals are going to keep coming for me, and people don’t like me enough to help me even if I scream.

I don’t have a very good idea of how people behave with their friends normally, because I’d never had one before, but on the bright side, Orion hadn’t either, so he didn’t know any more than I did. So for lack of a better idea we just went on being rude to each other, which was easy enough for me, and a refreshing and new experience for him,

“But my mom also told me to be polite to rejects, because it’s stupid to close doors, and suspicious of people who are too nice, because they want more from you than they’re letting on.

Getting attached to anyone in here except on practical terms is like sending out an engraved invitation to misery, even if you don’t pick out an idiot who spends all his time hurling himself into danger. But it was too late. I already didn’t like it enough that I had to make a special effort to stop myself from stupidly breaking into a run.

She says it’s too easy to call people evil instead of their choices, and that lets people justify making evil choices, because they convince themselves that it’s okay because they’re still good people overall, inside their own heads.

I think after a certain number of evil choices, it’s reasonable shorthand to decide that someone’s an evil person who oughtn’t have the chance to make any more choices. And the more power someone has, the less slack they ought to be given.

The rotten thing about having Mum as a mum is, I know how to stop being angry. I’ve been taught any number of ways to manage anger, and they really work. What she’s never been able to teach me is how to want to manage it. So I go on seething and raging and knowing the whole time that it’s my own fault, because I do know how to stop.

But I knew it the way you know the sixth biscuit in a row isn’t good for you and you’ll be sorry, and they’re not even really very nice, and yet you keep eating them anyway.

One enclave would push another into the dark for that, too. And they didn’t stop at safety, either. They wanted comfort, and then they wanted luxury, and then they wanted excess, and every step of the way they still wanted to be safe, even as they made themselves more and more of a tempting target, and the only way they could stay safe was to have enough power to keep everyone off that wanted what they had.

It’s always mattered a lot to me to keep a wall up round my dignity, even though dignity matters fuck-all when the monsters under your bed are real. Dignity was what I had instead of friends.

I know you’re just waiting for us to put your statue up, but that’s no reason to carry on like a slab of solid rock.”