El stomps into the room. Does a spell to check it rather than manually inspecting it, since this is exactly the sort of class that would generate the most ironic deaths. She'll do pushups later when her death would not be so ironic.

She plops into a decent chair that no one is overwhelmingly likely to steal unless the class is full and grabs her book.

“Hello.”

"Hello. I'm El."

“Jaime, Canada, creative writing.”

"Wales, languages."

“Mmhm.”

"Caio, São Paulo the city, alchemy?" volunteers a new kid, who is investigating a peculiar bulge on a ceiling panel but ultimately decides it's nothing. He still doesn't sit under it.

"You could just say 'Brazil', if the idea is that the enclavers will otherwise descend on you for trademark infringement."

"...thank you?"

“I appreciate the mental image of Mickey Mouse with a power sharer,” says Jaime, still in a monotone.

Basira, who came in at the same time as Caio, checks a seat one over from Caio and sits there. "Basira, Oxford, creative writing."

No trademark infringement implied.

In hindsight it probably shouldn't have been surprising that the class on maleficers would have some maleficers, but wow does that angry-looking girl have an aura. She should ... talk to her, probably? She doesn't have the hair, or the nails, so she might still have time to go clean. But maybe she'd be less receptive if Briar brings it up in the middle of class? 

She considers her options briefly, before sitting down behind the girl who just introduced herself as Oxford. Hopefully that isn't too forward; it's behind her, not next to her.

"Briar, Portland, creative writing."

Weird to introduce yourself by city when the class just established a convention of using your country if you're not from an enclave. Basira takes a moment to consider whether she could actually not recognise a US enclave on hearing its name and concludes no. Maybe she's just very American and thinks each city (town?) is as notable as a country.

"Hi."

"Riley, United States, alchemy."

Riley doesn't glare at El, but he does wonder if the school is trying to tell him something. He can't take down a maleficer with an aura like that- he should let the big enclaves worry about it. Just because it's tempting doesn't mean vigilantism will score him any points.

"It seems useful to know how to beat them," he says, because he's not going to let anyone lump him in with the maleficers. Not that strident denial will change anything- the maleficers here need plausible deniability, and lying is free.

Caio manages to find his textbook under his chair, which search strategy will in short order will have everyone else able to locate theirs, and the lecture starts not long after.

Much like lead pipes and bloodletting, the lecture informs them, long ago maleficing in the modern sense (the draw of power, 'malia' as opposed to 'mana', from complex living creatures with wills of their own) was not considered necessarily taboo or unwise. Ritual sacrifice of animals that were to be eaten later wasn't uncommon, and spiritual significance attached to specific animals such as those used in haruspicy allowed convenient convergence between the interests of the maleficers and their value to their communities. It was traditionally an occupation-limited activity, however, for sort of the same reason as kosher butchery requires a rabbi's intervention. Not just anyone can slaughter a snow-white calf just so to arrange that the correct forms are observed. Maleficing-related damage and instability seems to manifest in culture-bound ways. While it's undoubtedly a real underlying phenomenon, a respected haruspex was unlikely to go on a murderous rampage and far likelier to do things like skipping sleep, creating maleficaria, cursing their clan's enemies, or give false prophecies to control local politics. The diversity in symptoms is one reason it's so hard to pin down exactly what maleficing does to people, whether it's on a true spectrum with the drawing of power from insects or objects, etcetera. Given this, there is plenty of room to speculate, which, as specified on their written homework, is their first assignment.

All of them are definitely going to be speculating. The Doom Kid just has an evil wizard hiding in her lightning bolt scar and Jaime only brought along mice so that they could sew her a prom dress. So true, disembodied voice, so true.

She takes careful, efficient notes that do not include questions like "did any culture have a role for human maleficing?" or "could one person's belief they were doing justice, ever outweigh everyone else?" (There is one question mark next to 'culture-bound'. It's efficient.)

No, my love, we don't hurt living things says Mum's voice in her head. Presumably though if these old shamans and haruspices were like El, they wouldn't have been drawing from birds, they'd have taken all the life-force from every human being for a mile around and gone rampaging through the ancient world with it...

-reading this description, Riley wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Walsh had considered it. He shudders. He can't ask her about it now. He focuses on speculation. Riley starts writing down some notes about the kinds of people that might turn to maleficing when it is taboo. Could the symptoms be worse now because there isn't a priest or whatever doing it? Pulling malia needs permission, no matter how small. Maybe priests have that trust with everyone...

There were cultures that used to consider maleficing acceptable? Wow, the past is horrifying! Maybe that shouldn't be surprising, it's not like she didn't know that some people in the past were really evil, but maleficing is obviously wrong!

According to Briar's essay, cheating isn't exactly the same thing as maleficing, it's not evil and not everyone who does it is evil, but it's still better not to if you can avoid it. She avoids it.