A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) - Naomi Novik Page 0,25
actual busing process, which involves shoving your dirty tray into one dark slot of a massive metal rack that is slowly rotating while the conveyor belt carries it along. The safest place to do it is towards the far end, as the dishes and trays are all cleaned using jets of mortal flame, which scares off the mals, but it’s almost impossible to find an empty slot at that point, and an extra minute exposed and hunting around the busing area isn’t worth it. I usually aim for just short of the midpoint area, which has the benefit of a shorter line.
Orion considered this a perfect place for private conversation. “Nice try,” he said over my shoulder, “but it’s too late. I’m not going to forget about it just because you started pretending to be friendly. Want to try again telling me what really happened to Luisa?”
He hadn’t even realized that he’d convinced everyone in school that we were dating. I rolled my eyes—metaphorically only; I wasn’t fool enough to look away from the rack for even a moment. “Yes, I’m passionately excited to share more information with you. Your demonstrated sense and good judgment just fill me with confidence.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, but right then a six-armed thing vaguely like the offspring of an octopus and an iguana burst off the empty busing rack that had just rotated in, aiming right at the head of a sad-eyed freshman girl, and Orion whipped round and went for it, grabbing a knife off the girl’s tray even as he hurled a spell of engorgement. I saw the writing on the wall, and also an empty slot, so I got rid of my tray and dived clear before the thing swelled up like a bloating corpse and burst all over everyone in range.
I went back to my room unbesmirched, with plans to have breakfast with three kids from the London enclave—they’ve completely ignored me before now—and an offer from Nkoyo to trade Latin spells in language lab tomorrow. Orion slunk off to the showers, wafting a putrid stench. I didn’t feel quite even with him yet, but it was coming on nicely. So when he knocked ten minutes later with the lingering miasma wafting under the door, I felt magnanimous enough to open up and say, “Oh, all right, what will you give me for the information?”
I didn’t get past Oh, though, because it wasn’t Orion: it was Jack, smeared with a handful of the octopus thing’s guts for the smell—clever of him—and he shoved a sharpened table knife right into my gut. He pushed me collapsing backwards onto the floor and slid the door shut behind him, smiling with all his white teeth while I gasped around the shock of agony, yelling stupid stupid stupid at myself in my head. I’d already got ready for bed; I’d hung my mana crystal over the bedpost, where I could reach it in the night and where it was uselessly out of reach right now. He knelt down over me and brushed my hair away from my face with both hands, cupping my cheeks. “Galadriel,” he crooned.
My hands were wrapped around the hilt of the knife, involuntarily, trying to keep it from moving, but I made myself let go with one hand and tried to fumble it towards the other mana crystal, the half-full one I’d been working on this afternoon. It was hanging from the side of my bed right where my head went when I was doing push-ups, a few inches above the floor. If I could just reach it, I could connect to all my stored mana. I’d have absolutely no regret liquefying Jack’s bones.
It was just out of reach. My fingers were straining. I tried to shift my body over just a little, but it hurt a really huge amount, and Jack was stroking my face with his fingertips. It irritated me almost as much as the knife. “Stop that, you colossal dick,” I whispered, my voice thready with effort.
“Why don’t you make me?” he whispered back. “Come on, Galadriel, just do it. You’re so beautiful. You could be so beautiful. I’ll help you, I’ll do anything for you. We’ll have so much fun,” and I found my whole face crumpling like a sheet of cheap tinfoil. I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t want to know that I was going to say no. I didn’t want to know that I was going to refuse, even