It yanked his breath away.
“Don’t ever interrupt a magister, Kip. Even if you are a Guile.”
He looked down at his knuckles, fully expecting them to be bloody. They weren’t. She knew exactly how hard she could hit with that thing. At least she’d hit the knuckles of his right hand. His raw left hand would have been far worse.
Magister Kadah turned and walked back toward the front of the room, muttering, “Kip. Ridiculous name. But then what can one expect an illiterate slattern to name her bastard?”
It was a trap. Kip knew it was a trap. It yawned open right in front of his feet. She hates you and she has a plan, Kip. Just keep your mouth shut, Kip.
He raised his hand. It was the best compromise his brain could negotiate with his mouth.
She didn’t call on him. He kept his left hand up. Wrapped in white bandages, it was impossible to miss. It might have looked like a flag of surrender, if it weren’t so patently a rebellion.
“As you all should remember from yesterday’s lecture, drafting is the process of turning light into a physical substance, luxin.” She saw that Kip’s hand was still up, and her mouth tightened momentarily, but she ignored him. “Each color of light can be transformed into a different color of luxin, each of which has its own smell, weight, solidity, strength.”
Orholam’s beard, this? They were this far back? What a waste of—
“Kip, are we wasting your time?” she asked sharply. “Are we boring you?”
Trap, Kip. Don’t do it, Kip.
“No, my eyes glaze over like this all the time. Comes from having a mother who was always smoking haze.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“I have this condition,” Kip said. Stop it, Kip. Stop. “See, I’m not just fat, I’m also slow—you know, mentally—so when I get fixated on one thing, I’m not able to go on to the next subject until all my questions are answered. Maybe I’m not advanced enough for this class. Maybe I should be moved elsewhere.”
“I do see,” she said. He knew she wasn’t going to let him go to another class. He didn’t even know if there was another class. “Well, Master Guile, this is a novice class, and we pride ourselves on not leaving behind even the slowest cattle in the herd, and obviously, you really want to say something, don’t you?”
“Yes, Magister.” He hated her. He barely knew her, and he wanted to beat her ugly face in.
She smiled. It was a deeply unpleasant smile. Small woman, so pleased to be the mistress of her domain, so proud to bully a class full of children. “Then I’ll make you a deal, Kip: you say whatever you want, but if I find it impertinent, I’ll smack your knuckles again. You see, class, this will be a nice object lesson. An analogue for drafting—there’s always a price, and you have to decide if you are willing to pay it. So, Kip?”
“You called my mother illiterate, and that’s about as true as me calling you a decent human being.” Kip’s heart was welling up, blocking his throat. “My mother sold her soul to haze. She lied and cheated and stole, I think she even whored herself a few times, but she wasn’t illiterate. So if you’re going to slander my mother to make me look pathetic, there’s plenty of true things you can say. But that is not one of them.” You bitch.
The class goggled at Kip. He didn’t know if he’d just defanged a hundred rumors, or spawned them. Maybe both, but he’d kept a level tone, and he hadn’t called his magister a liar or worse. It was sort of a victory. Sort of.
“Are you quite finished?” the magister asked.
And now the price of the victory. “Yes,” Kip said.
He put his hand on the desk for her to smack—his left hand, wrapped in bandages.
Stupid, Kip. You’re just daring her. Asking for it.
Crack! Kip jumped as the switch slammed into the table so hard it made the surface jump—just two thumbs away from his hand.
“Class, sometimes with drafting as with life, you don’t have to pay the price for misbehaving,” Magister Kadah said. “Especially if you’re a Guile. Kip, I don’t like your attitude,” she said. “Go wait in the hall.”
Kip stood and walked out into the hall, followed by twenty pairs of eyes. His fellow students were from all over the Seven Satrapies: dark-skinned Parians, the girls with hair free, the boys wearing ghotras; olive-skinned Atashians with sapphire-bright eyes; and lots of Ruthgari, small-nosed, thin-lipped, and lighter-skinned, one even a blonde. Kip was the only Tyrean, though he looked more mutt than anything: hair kinky like a Parian, but without the lean, fluid build; eyes blue like an Atashian, but skin darker than their olive complexions, nose not prominent. He even had a few freckles visible through his skin like he was part Blood Forester.