The Last Graduate (The Scholomance, #2)

by Naomi Novik

Mana was surging into me; more than a wave, an ocean. “Oh my God,” I heard Chloe say, sounding choked, and when I darted a glance over, I saw she and Magnus and the other New York seniors were all staggering, all their allies too. The power-sharer on my wrist was glowing vividly, like all of theirs, and they were all clutching at any kids round them who would take a handout, literally flinging mana at them—the mana that Orion was suddenly pouring into the shared power supply. The mals were still dying so fast it didn’t seem real, as if they were coming apart even as they got to him.

He wasn’t locked in a grim, desperate struggle for his life, counting every drop of mana like a tumbling grain of sand in an hourglass. His every movement, each graceful killing sweep of his sword-whip, every spell he cast, every effort he put forth, they all fed him back, and you couldn’t help but feel, watching it, that he was doing what he was meant for—something so perfectly aligned with his nature that it was as easy as breathing. It made sense suddenly that you’d like it, that it would be everything you wanted to do, if there were something you were this good at, and it rewarded you with endless buckets of mana on top. Your own body would teach you to want it more than anything—want it so much you’d have to learn to want anything else.

Orion didn’t look over at me again, even when he surfaced in between the killing waves; he was too busy. It was just as well, because if he’d looked over at me, I’d have smiled stupidly back at him. I was glad, so glad, even pinned down in this room with all the monsters in the world trying to come at me, at Orion, because it wasn’t despair in his way after all; it was just the clumsiness of learning. He could want other things. I wasn’t the only thing he’d ever want; I was just the first other thing he’d wanted.

Love this

It was only seniors left now, and we were the survivors of a nightmare ourselves, the ones who’d endured the Scholomance—the last ones who would ever endure it.

Aadhya was calling, “El!” and I looked over and found her: she was almost at the front of the swiftly moving queue. She was smiling at me, her face wet with tears, and in their shine I wasn’t a glowing marvel after all, I was just me, just El, and I wanted to climb down and run to hug her, but all I could do was smile back from up on the platform, and as she took the last few steps forward, she pointed at me and then held her palm against her face: Call me!

I wouldn’t have expected it of them, of enclave kids; they’d been raised to do the opposite, to get themselves the hell out. But they’d also been raised on the party line, hadn’t they: they’d been told, just like the school itself, that Manchester and London and their heroic allies had built the Scholomance out of generosity and care, trying to save the wizard children of the world; and maybe just like the school, it had sunk in more than their parents might have wanted. Or maybe if you only gave someone a reasonable chance of doing some good, even an enclave kid might take it.

I had to shut my eyes so I wasn’t looking at it, and then I pretended that the gates were in front of me, the gates with Mum on the other side, Mum and my whole future, and that was true, because I couldn’t get there until I’d gone through this, because the bloody horrible universe wanted me to suffer, and I jumped forward into the maw-mouth.

Even as the horrible surface of it closed over me, I cast La Main de la Mort with all my rage and the mana of a thousand mals behind it, and I cast it again, and again, and again, my whole face and body clenched tight, and I don’t know how long it was, it was forever, it was three seconds, it was my entire life stretched out to infinity, and then it was over and Liu was yelling at me, “El! El, look out!”

I hadn’t expected to feel sorry. I hadn’t allowed myself to expect that I’d even make it to this moment, so I hadn’t imagined what it would be like if I did, but even if I had, I don’t think I could have imagined that. But for a moment, I was sorry: the Scholomance had done everything it could for us, given us ungrateful sods everything it had, like that awful story about the giving tree, and here I was about to chop it down.

But our time was running out: the hanging numbers of flame were counting down the last seconds. “We can’t!” I yelled at him, and turning braced my whole body and flung one hand out, at the end of a stiff arm, to hold Patience off again through one more thundering blow.

I gulped air and turned back to haul Orion up one more step, to the very edge of the gateway, and then I let go of his arm and caught his face in both hands and pulled him round to look at me. “Orion! We’re going!” He stared down at me. The seething colors of the gateway were shining in his eyes, mottling his skin, and he leaned in towards me, like he wanted to kiss me. “Do you want to get kneed again? Because I will!” I snarled at him, in outrage. He jerked back from me, more ordinary color flushing into his cheeks. His eyes cleared for a moment; he looked back at Patience, and then he laughed once—he laughed, a short laugh, and it was awful. He turned to me and said, “El, I love you so much.” And then he shoved me through the gate.

She didn’t even call him Lake… oh my god.