Connie should have been fine.  Okay, so she wasn't a real enclaver, she didn't have their almost-guaranteed shot, but her mom had been working for the Boston enclave since well before she was born and her dad corresponded with half the really impressive arcanists on the East Coast and some as far away as Thailand, she was short for her age so she could carry more of their things, she couldn’t quite carry on a conversation in Mandarin but she could read and write and cast and understand it spoken, which meant she could take history in Mandarin and leave a free period for errands, and, most fun if not most importantly, she was flying through junior-level math by twelve, which meant a. another free period and b. a chance at senior-level trade goods freshman year.  (And, stroke of luck, there was a boy three years older than her, one of the actual enclave kids, who was utterly hopeless at math.  Even if she couldn’t undercut whoever was doing his homework before she got in, he knew her name and would probably mention her to his senior friends, assuming he survived until then which was a fairly safe one as assumptions go.)  Her affinity was something like ‘forces’, as far as she could figure out, which would serve her well enough for maintenance track if she had to but ought to be useful enough in a fight she wouldn’t necessarily have to.

And then when she was twelve the dominus of the Boston enclave found her shaking in the middle of an unluckily empty street, surrounded by two dozen dead pigeons and a five-yard radius of extremely flat blood-clinger.  It was made very clear to both Connie and her mother that Boston does not tolerate maleficing, that Connie was not to expect any kind of patronage or even contact from the actual enclave kids once she made it to the Scholomance, that it was only in recognition of her mother’s long and loyal service that she was keeping her spot at all, and that if her brothers wanted any kind of support no one in the family had better put another toe out of line in the eight years until their turn came up.

And so instead of trade goods for the Boston communal pool and letters and things the bigger kids couldn’t fit in their weight allotment, she has lightweight backpacking gear (quality but mundane), a small packet of adhesive healing patches from her father’s coauthor in Chicago, five amber beads for mana storage (all they could afford, she’ll have to find or make or trade for more once she’s in), and the pocketwatch-sized circular slide rule that saw her father and his oldest half-sister both through the Scholomance, more because of the layers of charms for luck and protection and endurance than because of any need to urgently calculate a logarithm.

...and six small feeder mice, shoplifted from a pet store and swapped for her spare pair of cargo pants at the last possible moment.  There’s one other almost guaranteed path out of the Scholomance.  

Not that she intended to use them, particularly, but if everyone already thought she was a maleficer and then she tried to trade for a critter population, she’d get a horrible deal and get a reputation as not only a maleficer but an incompetent one.  Better to have them and swap them later if she turned out not to need them.  She does not try to make this argument to her parents.

Her mother is on duty the night of induction, making sure the wards hold at this last critical moment, so at nine Connie hugs her and her brothers (so they can go to bed) and kisses her tiny baby sister (who she can’t help but resent a little, even though she knows her parents had planned on six-year spacing from the start).  She sets an alarm for midnight and tries to nap, or at least rest a bit, which doesn’t particularly work, leafs through a favorite book without really reading it, then climbs to the roof and watches the stars with her father, not speaking.

Connie should have been fine.  Okay, so she wasn't a real enclaver, she didn't have their almost-guaranteed shot, but her mom had been working for the Boston enclave since well before she was born and her dad corresponded with half the really impressive arcanists on the East Coast and some as far away as Thailand, she was short for her age so she could carry more of their things, she couldn’t quite carry on a conversation in Mandarin but she could read and write and cast and understand it spoken, which meant she could take history in Mandarin and leave a free period for errands, and, most fun if not most importantly, she was flying through junior-level math by twelve, which meant a. another free period and b. a chance at senior-level trade goods freshman year.  (And, stroke of luck, there was a boy three years older than her, one of the actual enclave kids, who was utterly hopeless at math.  Even if she couldn’t undercut whoever was doing his homework before she got in, he knew her name and would probably mention her to his senior friends, assuming he survived until then which was a fairly safe one as assumptions go.)  Her affinity was something like ‘forces’, as far as she could figure out, which would serve her well enough for maintenance track if she had to but ought to be useful enough in a fight she wouldn’t necessarily have to.

And then when she was twelve the dominus of the Boston enclave found her shaking in the middle of an unluckily empty street, surrounded by two dozen dead pigeons and a five-yard radius of extremely flat blood-clinger.  It was made very clear to both Connie and her mother that Boston does not tolerate maleficing, that Boston cannot afford to even appear to countenance maleficing.  Connie was no longer welcome at sparring practice, she was not to expect any kind of patronage or even contact from the actual enclave kids once she made it to the Scholomance, and if her brothers wanted to keep their spot at the Boston table they had better not follow her lead in the eight years before their turn came up.

And so instead of trade goods for the Boston communal pool and letters and things the bigger kids couldn’t fit in their weight allotment, she has lightweight backpacking gear (quality but mundane), a small packet of adhesive healing patches from her father’s coauthor in Chicago, five amber beads for mana storage (all they could afford, she’ll have to find or make or trade for more once she’s in), and the pocketwatch-sized circular slide rule that saw her father and his oldest half-sister both through the Scholomance, more because of the layers of charms for luck and protection and endurance than because of any need to urgently calculate a logarithm.

...and six small feeder mice, shoplifted from a pet store and swapped for her spare pair of cargo pants at the last possible moment.  There’s one other almost guaranteed path out of the Scholomance.  

Not that she intended to use them, particularly, but if everyone already thought she was a maleficer and then she tried to trade for a critter population, she’d get a horrible deal and get a reputation as not only a maleficer but an incompetent one.  Better to have them and swap them later if she turned out not to need them.  She does not try to make this argument to her parents.

Connie's been slowly shifting her schedule to match Scholomance time for the past three weeks (and so has her dad, who can do most of his work anytime when school isn't in session) so that she won't be fighting jetlag in the first few days, but it means she hasn't seen very much of her mom or her brothers in the past few days.  Her mom stays up the night of induction to go over her pack with her one last time, then gets the boys up at quarter after one so they can see her off. (Connie had woken up just in time to hear them insisting that they were too old enough to stay up and that she had to super extra promise to wake them.)  Her tiny baby sister isn't sleeping through the night yet and won't remember her this anyway, so when her dad puts her back down after a feed around 11 Connie kisses her soft head (and ignores the flicker of resentment she can't quite squash, even though she knows her parents had planned on six-year spacing from the start) and they let her sleep after that.  Last-minute hugs, last-minute weigh-in, drop the crochet hooks she can do macrame instead, more hugs, no crying, no promises. 

Connie should have been fine.  Okay, so she wasn't a real enclaver, she didn't have their almost-guaranteed shot, but her mom had been working for the Boston enclave since well before she was born and her dad corresponded with half the really impressive arcanists on the East Coast and some as far away as Thailand, she was short for her age so she could carry more of their things, she couldn’t quite carry on a conversation in Mandarin but she could read and write and cast and understand it spoken, which meant she could take history in Mandarin and leave a free period for errands, and, most fun if not most importantly, she was flying through junior-level math by twelve, which meant a. another free period and b. a chance at senior-level trade goods freshman year.  (And, stroke of luck, there was a boy three years older than her, one of the actual enclave kids, who was utterly hopeless at math.  Even if she couldn’t undercut whoever was doing his homework before she got in, he knew her name and would probably mention her to his senior friends, assuming he survived until then which was a fairly safe one as assumptions go.)  Her affinity was something like ‘forces’, as far as she could figure out, which would serve her well enough for maintenance track if she had to but ought to be useful enough in a fight she wouldn’t necessarily have to.

And then when she was twelve the dominus of the Boston enclave found her shaking in the middle of an unluckily empty street, surrounded by two dozen dead pigeons and a five-yard radius of extremely flat blood-clinger.  It was made very clear to both Connie and her mother that Boston does not tolerate maleficing, that Boston cannot afford to even appear to countenance maleficing.  Connie was no longer welcome at sparring practice, she was not to expect any kind of patronage or even contact from the actual enclave kids once she made it to the Scholomance, and if her brothers wanted to keep their spot at the Boston table they had better not follow her lead in the eight years before their turn came up.

And so instead of trade goods for the Boston communal pool and letters and things the bigger kids couldn’t fit in their weight allotment, she has lightweight backpacking gear (quality but mundane), a small packet of adhesive healing patches from her father’s coauthor in Chicago, five amber beads for mana storage (all they could afford, she’ll have to find or make or trade for more once she’s in), and the pocketwatch-sized circular slide rule that saw her father and his oldest half-sister both through the Scholomance, more because of the layers of charms for luck and protection and endurance than because of any need to urgently calculate a logarithm.

...and six small feeder mice, shoplifted from a pet store and swapped for her spare pair of cargo pants at the last possible moment.  There’s one other almost guaranteed path out of the Scholomance.  

Not that she intended to use them, particularly, but if everyone already thought she was a maleficer and then she tried to trade for a critter population, she’d get a horrible deal and get a reputation as not only a maleficer but an incompetent one.  Better to have them and swap them later if she turned out not to need them.  She does not try to make this argument to her parents.

Connie's been slowly shifting her schedule to match Scholomance time for the past three weeks (and so has her dad, who can do most of his work anytime when school isn't in session) so that she won't be fighting jetlag in the first few days, but it means she hasn't seen very much of her mom or her brothers in the past few days.  Her mom stays up the night of induction to go over her pack with her one last time, then gets the boys up at quarter after one so they can see her off. (Connie had woken up just in time to hear them insisting that they were too old enough to stay up and that she had to super extra promise to wake them.)  Her tiny baby sister isn't sleeping through the night yet and won't remember her this anyway, so when her dad puts her back down after a feed around 11 Connie kisses her soft head (and ignores the flicker of resentment she can't quite squash, even though she knows her parents had planned on six-year spacing from the start) and they let her sleep after that.  Last-minute hugs, last-minute weigh-in, drop the crochet hooks she can do macrame instead, more hugs.  No crying.  No promises. 

Connie should have been fine.  Okay, so she wasn't a real enclaver, she didn't have their almost-guaranteed shot, but her mom had been working for the Boston enclave since well before she was born and her dad corresponded with half the really impressive arcanists on the East Coast and some as far away as Thailand, she was short for her age so she could carry more of their things, she couldn’t quite carry on a conversation in Mandarin but she could read and write and cast and understand it spoken, which meant she could take history in Mandarin and leave a free period for errands, and, most fun if not most importantly, she was flying through junior-level math by twelve, which meant a. another free period and b. a chance at senior-level trade goods freshman year.  (And, stroke of luck, there was a boy three years older than her, one of the actual enclave kids, who was utterly hopeless at math.  Even if she couldn’t undercut whoever was doing his homework before she got in, he knew her name and would probably mention her to his senior friends, assuming he survived until then which was a fairly safe one as assumptions go.)  Her affinity was something like ‘forces’, as far as she could figure out, which would serve her well enough for maintenance track if she had to but ought to be useful enough in a fight she wouldn’t necessarily have to.

And then when she was twelve the dominus of the Boston enclave found her shaking in the middle of an unluckily empty street, surrounded by two dozen dead pigeons and a five-yard radius of extremely flat blood-clinger.  It was made very clear to both Connie and her mother that Boston does not tolerate maleficing, that Boston cannot afford to even appear to countenance maleficing.  Connie was no longer welcome at sparring practice, she was not to expect any kind of patronage or even contact from the actual enclave kids once she made it to the Scholomance, and if her brothers wanted to keep their spot at the Boston table they had better not follow her lead in the eight years before their turn came up.

And so instead of trade goods for the Boston communal pool and letters and things the bigger kids couldn’t fit in their weight allotment, she has lightweight backpacking gear (quality but mundane), a small packet of adhesive healing patches from her father’s coauthor in Chicago, five amber beads for mana storage (all they could afford, she’ll have to find or make or trade for more once she’s in), and the pocketwatch-sized circular slide rule that saw her father and his oldest half-sister both through the Scholomance, more because of the layers of charms for luck and protection and endurance than because of any need to urgently calculate a logarithm.

...and six small feeder mice, shoplifted from a pet store and swapped for her spare pair of cargo pants at the last possible moment.  There’s one other almost guaranteed path out of the Scholomance.  

Not that she intended to use them, particularly, but if everyone already thought she was a maleficer and then she tried to trade for a critter population, she’d get a horrible deal and get a reputation as not only a maleficer but an incompetent one.  Better to have them and swap them later if she turned out not to need them.  She does not try to make this argument to her parents.

Connie's been slowly shifting her schedule to match Scholomance time for the past three weeks (and so has her dad, who can do most of his work anytime when school isn't in session) so that she won't be fighting jetlag when she arrives, but it means she hasn't seen very much of her mom or her brothers in the past few days.  Her mom stays up the night of induction to go over her pack with her one last time, then gets the boys up at quarter after one so they can see her off. (Connie had woken up just in time to hear them insisting that they were too old enough to stay up and that she had to super extra promise to wake them.)  Her tiny baby sister isn't sleeping through the night yet and won't remember her this anyway, so when her dad puts her back down after a feed around 11 Connie kisses her soft head (and ignores the flicker of resentment she can't quite squash, even though she knows her parents had planned on six-year spacing from the start) and they let her sleep after that.  Last-minute hugs, last-minute weigh-in, drop the crochet hooks she can do macrame instead, more hugs.  No crying.  No promises. 

Connie should have been fine.  Okay, so she wasn't a real enclaver, she didn't have their almost-guaranteed shot, but her mom had been working for the Boston enclave since well before she was born and her dad corresponded with half the really impressive arcanists on the East Coast and some as far away as Thailand, she was short for her age so she could carry more of their things, she couldn’t quite carry on a conversation in Mandarin but she could read and write and cast and understand it spoken, which meant she could take history in Mandarin and leave a free period for errands, and, most fun if not most importantly, she was flying through junior-level math by twelve, which meant a. another free period and b. a chance at senior-level trade goods freshman year.  (And, stroke of luck, there was a boy three years older than her, one of the actual enclave kids, who was utterly hopeless at math.  Even if she couldn’t undercut whoever was doing his homework before she got in, he knew her name and would probably mention her to his senior friends, assuming he survived until then which was a fairly safe one as assumptions go.)  Her affinity was something like ‘forces’, as far as she could figure out, which would serve her well enough for maintenance track if she had to but ought to be useful enough in a fight she wouldn’t necessarily have to (and good luck prying Kevin away from the plumbing, anyway).

And then when she was twelve the dominus of the Boston enclave found her shaking in the middle of an unluckily empty street, surrounded by two dozen dead pigeons and a five-yard radius of extremely flat blood-clinger.  It was made very clear to both Connie and her mother that Boston does not tolerate maleficing, that Boston cannot afford to even appear to countenance maleficing.  Connie was no longer welcome at sparring practice, she was not to expect any kind of patronage or even contact from the actual enclave kids once she made it to the Scholomance, and if her brothers wanted to keep their spot at the Boston table they had better not follow her lead in the eight years before their turn came up.

And so instead of trade goods for the Boston communal pool and letters and things the bigger kids couldn’t fit in their weight allotment, she has lightweight backpacking gear (quality but mundane), a small packet of adhesive healing patches from her father’s coauthor in Chicago, three amber beads for mana storage (all they could afford, she’ll have to find or make or trade for more once she’s in), and the pocketwatch-sized circular slide rule that saw her father and his oldest half-sister both through the Scholomance, more because of the layers of charms for luck and protection and endurance than because of any need to urgently calculate a logarithm.

...and six small feeder mice, shoplifted from a pet store and swapped for her spare pair of cargo pants at the last possible moment.  There’s one other almost guaranteed path out of the Scholomance.  

Not that she intended to use them, particularly, but if everyone already thought she was a maleficer and then she tried to trade for a critter population, she’d get a horrible deal and get a reputation as not only a maleficer but an incompetent one.  Better to have them and swap them later if she turned out not to need them.  She does not try to make this argument to her parents.

Connie's been slowly shifting her schedule to match Scholomance time for the past three weeks (and so has her dad, who can do most of his work anytime when school isn't in session) so that she won't be fighting jetlag when she arrives, but it means she hasn't seen very much of her mom or her brothers in the past few days.  Her mom stays up the night of induction to go over her pack with her one last time, then gets the boys up at quarter after one so they can see her off. (Connie had woken up just in time to hear them insisting that they were too old enough to stay up and that she had to super extra promise to wake them.)  Her tiny baby sister isn't sleeping through the night yet and won't remember her this anyway, so when her dad puts her back down after a feed around 11 Connie kisses her soft head (and ignores the flicker of resentment she can't quite squash, even though she knows her parents had planned on six-year spacing from the start) and they let her sleep after that.  Last-minute hugs, last-minute weigh-in, drop the crochet hooks she can do macrame instead, more hugs.  No crying.  No promises.