A Practical Guide to Sorcery (Books 1 & 2)

Chapter 74 - The Glasshopper (Part 2)

"People get cocky," Moncrieffe replied immediately. "They think they're experts and they get a little too confident. It would be worse if the upper terms were also filled with people without a strong foundation in sorcery."

Brinn sighed. "Maybe. It is sad, though."

Ascott squeezed his fingers, and he smiled at her.

"Well, what's the alternative?" Moncrieffe asked with a complacent shrug. "Not learn magic?"

"That's excessive, of course," Ana said.

"Not accept those who are statistically more likely to hurt themselves with it, then?" he asked.

"Poor, less-educated people, you mean," Sebastien said.

"Exactly. Everyone knows the risks, and they accept them. The University is doing what they can to mitigate the danger."

Sebastien wasn't sure that was true, but she wasn't going to argue with Moncrieffe, who was even more stubborn and self-assured than the rest of Damien's friends.

"It is true that accidents as well as deaths have gone down significantly in modern times," Damien conceded. "Some people, like my father, actually want to go back to the old, harsher ways. He thinks this 'softness' is stunting the potential growth of our nation."

"Having more of our future thaumaturges dying would stunt the growth of Lenore," Ana snapped back, glaring at the doll-sized dress she was wrapping around the dessert pixie.

"Of course it would," Damien said with a helpless shrug. "But good luck using logic to win an argument with my father, or people like him."

"The man is a sadist," Ana snapped, a little too loudly. She looked around, realizing her error, then to Damien, who didn't respond. She pressed her lips together as if to keep any more poorly considered words from slipping past them.

"Enough of this depressing talk," Moncrieffe said, sitting up from Damien's lap. "What we need are more drinks." He raised an arm to wave down the ever-attentive waiter.

Damien looked to Sebastien searchingly, but she kept from showing either sympathy or any particular interest in Damien's home life. She knew she hated it when people pried, as if her life were a piece of juicy gossip meant to entertain them. She wanted pity even less. "You were in the top three hundred of the entrance examinations, right?" She didn't really need to ask. She knew, because she'd heard him bragging about it enough times. "Do you think you managed to maintain that rank this time around?"

Gervin groaned and turned to the approaching waiter. "Whiskey!" he ordered. "And no talking about grades. I don't wish to think about that. If my scores weren't good enough... Well. Lord Westbay and my father are friends for a reason." He turned, a little awkwardly, toward Sebastien. "That tutor you recommended, Newton Moore, he is rather good."

She waited for Gervin to continue, but apparently that was all he meant to say. "He is," she agreed.

When the waiter brought the alcohol, Sebastien even let herself be coerced into having a single shot of Whiskerton's Whiskey of Well-being, which—as advertised—made her feel like she was being held on her grandfather's lap, in front of the fire, about to fall asleep with the deep knowledge that he would never let anything bad happen to her.

Of course, something bad did happen to her. Had happened to her.

Now it was up to her to protect herself.

She refused to have any more of the whiskey, even as the others did, slipping away instead to check on Tanya's location, which was just where it should have been.