Page 71 of Taste of Thorns

Instead, she leaps up onto her feet, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder.

“I don’t have to sit here and be insulted like that by Slate scum like you!” she announces, sneering down her nose at me like I’m nothing better than a pile of shit. “It’s so disgusting that I even have to be in this room with all of these scummy students. Just because all of you are pathetically ill-educated doesn’t mean that we are, and we shouldn’t have to endure all these stupid lessons.”

She storms out of the classroom. Her sister hesitates for a moment, peering around the classroom, then scuttles after Henrietta.

“Yes, yes,” the professor says, still fiddling with the hearing device, “if you’re not feeling well, please do visit the clinic.”

Everybody else sits there in stunned silence, several staring open-mouthed at me.

The professor mistakes it for enraptured eagerness for his class to begin and launches into a rambling lesson about some battle between shifter clans three hundred years ago.

“Was that wise?” Fly asks me, looking nervous. “Henrietta is a dangerous enemy. She already disliked you. Now you’ve antagonized her even more.”

“I couldn’t help myself. What she said was just …” I shake my head.

“Yeah, but she says bullshit like that all the time.”

He’s right. She does. Today it got under my skin. Because I can’t stop thinking about the professor’s comment. Esme was a talented student and it’s the talented students who end up dead. Like my sister, for example.

I wait impatiently as the minutes tick by, barely hearing a word the professor says about shifter clans and their ongoing disagreements, until finally the bell clangs an hour later. We have another lesson straight afterwards, but I linger behind with Fly, waiting for the other students to leave.

The professor hasn’t noticed us still waiting in his room. I cough to get his attention but he doesn’t hear and so I step closer.

“Professor Cornelius?” I say loudly.

He jolts in his seat.

“Oh my goodness, I didn’t see you there, young lady. Whatever is the problem?”

“I wanted to ask you a question.”

“About the shifter clan wars?” he asks hopefully.

“No, about something you said earlier.”

He scratches his head. “What did I say earlier?”

“That only the most promising of students die young.”

“I said that?” he asks, looking confused.

“You did.”

He strokes his fingers down his beard. “Well, what of it? It’s just a turn of phrase.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointment slapping me hard across the face. For a moment, I thought I’d unpicked something important.

“So, it’s not just the promising students, then?” Fly says, clearly following my line of thinking.

“Of course not, unfortunately all sorts of students pass away each year. The promising and the not-so promising. Such a shame and completely unnecessary if you ask me.” He straightens the books in front of him.

I turn to Fly and he shrugs.

“Was there anything else I can help you with? If you’re interested in the clan wars, I can recommend this very interesting book. It’s a history of the realm but the section on the shifter wars is very well done in my opinion.” He yanks the bottom book from the pile and hands it to me.

“Ahh, thank you,” I say, taking it from him because I don’t want to hurt the old man’s feelings, even if I have no intention of reading the book.

Fly and I stride towards the door, reaching for the handle when the old man speaks again.