A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) - Naomi Novik Page 0,131

surface of his eyes and if you looked at his fur from a sharp angle, and he sniffed at us curiously, unafraid. After we each stroked him for a bit, Liu put him down and let him just roam around the room; he scampered around sniffing at things and poking his head into places. He got up on the desk and then turned wary right near the spot where the scuttler had been hiding; he ran away from it fast, back to Liu, until she checked it for him and showed him it was clear; then she patted him and praised him and gave him a little chunk of dried fruit out of a bag she had tied to her waist. He climbed into the front pocket on her shirt and sat there nibbling on it happily.

“Could you train the rest for other people?” I asked, watching him, utterly entranced. “You’d get a lot in trade.” I’d never had much time for animals before, once Mum trained me out of wanting to dissect them; I mainly ignored the dogs on the commune and was ignored in turn. I’ve never even liked cute cat videos. But I hadn’t quite realized how starved I was of seeing anything alive and moving that wasn’t trying to kill me. Familiars aren’t common here: it’s really expensive in terms of weight to bring them in, and painfully hard to take care of them inside. When your choices are to feed yourself or feed your cat, you feed yourself, or else the next mal gets you and the cat, too. But mice are cheap enough to feed that it wouldn’t be that difficult. I just hadn’t thought of it as something I’d want.

“Yes, after I train one for each of my cousins,” Liu said. “They’ll be here tonight.”

It took me by odd surprise again, being reminded of something that you already know but that doesn’t seem true yet: We were seniors now. It was our last year. Tonight was induction.

“Can we come pick one out now?” Aadhya said. She was as mesmerized as I was. “Do they need anything? Like a cage?”

Liu nodded, getting up. “You’ll need to make something enclosed so they can hide during the day while you’re out and they’re sleeping. But come and choose one now. You have to play with it for at least an hour every day for a month or so before you take it. I’ll show you how to give them mana: you have to put it into the treats you give.” I swung my feet off the bed and got on my shoes, and then Liu opened the door and we all jumped back, because Orion was standing right outside like a creeper. He jumped himself, so it wasn’t that he’d actually been planning to ambush me; I could only guess that he’d been standing there working himself up to knocking.

“I’ll come and take a look now, Liu,” Aadhya said loudly. “I can figure out how to put together a good enclosure.” She pushed Liu—who was blushing again and trying not to look at Orion—ahead of her and out the door past Orion, and then from behind his back she made a wild pointing motion towards him and exaggeratedly mouthed words that I had no trouble recognizing as SECRET PET MAL, so I had to fight not to go squawking with hysterical laughter into my pillow. They vanished down the corridor.

Orion looked as though he would have liked to run away, which I would have sympathized with, except at least he could, since he wasn’t already inside his own room. He’d showered, changed clothes, got his hair cut, and even shaved: I eyed his newly smooth jawline with suspicion. I really had absolutely no intention of going out with anyone at school. Forget pregnancy; the last thing I needed was the distraction. He was already generating more than enough distraction in my life even when I didn’t have to wonder whether kissing was going to happen anytime he was in my vicinity.

“Look, Lake,” I said, just as he blurted, “El, listen,” and I heaved a sigh of deep relief. “Right. You just wanted to tick it off before you died.”

“No!”

“You don’t actually want to date me, do you?”

“I—” He looked baffled and desperate and then said, “If you—I don’t—it’s up to you!”

I stared at him. “It is, but that’s my part. Your part’s not up to me. Or are you actually trying to further