A Deadly Education

“Everyone—almost everyone—uses a bit of malia here and there, stuff they don’t even think of as wicked. Magic a slice of bread into cake without gathering the mana for it first, that sort of thing, which everyone thinks is just harmless cheating. Well, the power’s got to come from somewhere, and if you haven’t gathered it yourself, then it’s probably coming from something living, because it’s easier to get power out of something that’s already alive and moving around. So you get your cake and meanwhile a colony of ants in your back garden stiffen and die and disintegrate.”

In this passage, El explains the common perceptions of use of malia and mana—mana use requires labor and storage while malia can be pulled from the environment. For most wizards, small amounts of malia can be pulled reasonably harmlessly from the world around them. As El demonstrates for Orion shortly after this passage, her affinity targets and pulls malia from the people around her.

“He’d kept his head down all dinner even while everyone at our table talked loudly about how massively wonderful he was. I’d seen him do the same after his other notable rescues, and had never quite decided if he was making a pretense of modesty, was actually modest to the point of pathology, or was just so horribly awkward he had nothing to say to people complimenting him.”

El’s observation of Orion’s post-rescue behavior is one of the earliest signs of Orion’s characterization as an awkward, isolated young person, who does not have many true friends or confidants. This also demonstrates that El is open to seeing Orion as a person with complex feelings and motivations; many people have already “decided” about El without knowing her, and El’s thoughts here show she is a person who does not make judgments about people based on superficial observations.

“I’d explain what the void is, but I haven’t any idea. If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to live in the days when our cave-dwelling ancestors stared up at this black thing full of twinkly bits of light with no idea whatsoever what was up there and what it all meant, well, I imagine that it was similar to sitting in a Scholomance dorm room staring out at the pitch-black surroundings. I’m happy to be able to report that it’s not pleasant or comfortable at all.”

This description of the void conveys how unsettling even the “safest” parts of the school can be. The school is more secure than the outside world, but it is still held together through magic and belief and this responsive black abyss they don’t truly understand. Descriptions like these, along with El’s caution when opening any doors or cabinets, help to establish the