A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) - Naomi Novik Page 0,17
mention it, Galadriel, really, no problem.”
“I did see it, and because there was only half an inch out, there was enough time that I could’ve got a helping of eggs if you hadn’t shoved in front of me. And if I was still stupid enough at the tail end of junior year to go for a tray full of freshly cooked scrambled eggs without checking the perimeter, not even your undivided attention would get me out of this school alive. Are you a masochist or something? Why are you still doing favors for me?” I grabbed the raisin bowl, covered it with a small side plate, and shook it until two dozen of them had come out one at a time. I poked them all thoroughly with my fork and went on to the cinnamon shaker, but one distant sniff was enough to tell me that was no-go today. The cream was also a loss: if you tilted it to the light, there was a faint blue slick over the surface. At least the brown sugar was all right.
I took a quick look both ways after coming off the line and then carried the two trays back over to where Aadhya had set us up at a good table, three in from the door: close enough to get out if they started to shut us in, and far enough not to be in the front lines if something came in through them. She’d laid a perimeter and done a safety charm on the cutlery and even got us one of the safer water jugs, the clear ones. “No eggs, thanks to Mr. Fantastic here,” I told her, putting down the trays.
“Was it the clinger? One of them got a senior pretty badly before we got here,” Aadhya said, nodding over at a table where an older boy was leaning half conscious between two of his friends with a series of huge bloody sucker-marks wrapped around his arm twice like a twining bracelet. They were trying to give him something to drink, but he had a clammy going-into-shock look, and they were already trading resigned anxious glances across him. I don’t think anyone ever gets used to it, but only the most sensitive flowers still burst into tears over losses by the time they’re staring graduation in the face. By then they’ve got to be locking down alliances and planning strategy, and however critical he’d been to theirs, they were going to have to find a way to patch it—tough with only three weeks to end of term.
Sure enough, the first bell rang for seniors—we leave meals at staggered intervals, oldest kids first, and if you think that it’s worse to go first, you’re right—and the two of them gently eased him down slumped onto the table. Ibrahim was sitting at the end of the neighboring table with Yaakov—his best friend here in our goldfish bowl, although they both know they’ll never speak to each other again if they live to get out of it—and one of the seniors turned to them and said something, probably bribing them to stay with their friend to the end. They must have had a time slot down in the gym they couldn’t afford to lose: it was going to be bad enough for them losing a member of their team this close to graduation. Ibrahim and Yaakov traded looks and then nodded and switched tables, taking the gamble. It’s not safe to skive off this close to finals, but lessons aren’t as important as graduation practice.
“Still sorry I took it out?” Orion said to me. His face was unhappy and wrenched, looking at them, although I’d have given any odds you like that he hadn’t even known the boy. No one else was looking anywhere in that direction. You have to ration sympathy and grief in here the way you ration your school supplies, unless you’re a heroic enclaver with a vat of mana.
“Still sorry I was done out of my scrambled eggs,” I said coolly, and started eating my porridge.
Ibrahim’s deal turned out okay: the senior died before our first bell rang. Ibrahim and Yaakov left his body there, arms folded on the table and head pillowed facedown, like he’d just drifted off for a nap. It wouldn’t be here by the time we came in for lunch. I marked off the table mentally, along with the ones surrounding it. Some of the things that clean up messes like that will