Erase it. Erase it from your brain,’ she urged herself. ‘Oh, look, there’s so much magic to watch!’


    I can forgive, if the person is deserving. But I never forget. I won’t give him a chance to repeat his mistake in any situation where the outcome is actually important.’


    I still have a long way to go before I can brag about having any real grasp on light or illusions.’


    I could really get used to being rich enough to eat like this all the time. How am I supposed to go back to cafeteria food?’ Suddenly, the complaints from her fellow students at the beginning of the term made more sense. ‘What a wonderful incentive to earn and spend contribution points. Stick, meet carrot,’ she mused. She caught Damien watching her eat with an irritating, smug expression on his face but decided not to protest. After all, she was eating for free.


    I can’t believe I forgot!’ Her mind raced, but quickly settled on a destination. She found Professor Lacer just as the Practical Casting exhibitions were ending. He was retying his hair with a leather cord at the base of his neck, the edges of his mouth turned down with fatigue. He’d trimmed his beard recently and scratched at it idly as she stopped in front of him.


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    Was that a joke?’ Once again, she turned and hurried off, this time to the dorms where the box of spell exercise instructions and supplies waited. Thinking back to the beginning of term when he had given her the assignments, she remembered planning to master them by mid-term to prove her dedication. That seemed a laughable goal now. Even after the entire term, she was still apprehensive about her results.


    A divination of some sort,’ she realized. Whatever it was, it only caught the barest edges of her divination-diverting ward and was easy enough to ignore.


    light” allowing her to affect that energy, trying to smother the area in darkness instead was so much more difficult than she could have expected.


    weaker. Perhaps it was her lack of familiarity with these new twists on the concept.


    overpower light.”


    If I hadn’t been researching light so deeply, would my attempts have been even more lackluster?’ Sebastien turned her head to meet Professor Lacer’s steady gaze. “Is there anything I can do?”


    doubled her capacity from the beginning of term. In only five months, she had achieved almost as much as in all the years since she began learning from Grandfather. Her progress had stagnated for much of that time, however, with not enough time spent practicing and no new magic to stretch her Will. ‘It was the right decision to come here. Despite everything.’ When trying to do the math on the ratio of improvement, she realized that her birthday had passed, without her even realizing it, and she was now two decades old.


    Where does he draw the line?’ she couldn’t help but wonder, some of that cold bleakness he had spread through the room earlier returning to her chest. ‘If he would do that to them, just for being related to Newton, for loving him… What would it take for him to do something similar to me?’ Sure, she was his apprentice, but that could only hold so much weight.


    I will have to observe him for much longer to understand him. To find out if, like Ennis, Thaddeus Lacer is the type to throw those closest to him to the wolves when it becomes convenient.’


    100 Clever Ways Thaumaturges Have Committed Suicide it read, and in smaller print down below, How to Avoid Offing Yourself Through Sheer, Reckless Stupidity.