"I went with her and Raleigh on a supply run the other day - and speaking of non-secret maleficers the weird African one was along! He was well-behaved on the supply run and actually asked me point blank what was so bad about maleficing and turned out not to have heard of the concept of brain damage."

"Oh, god, that kid was in my homeroom. He said he didn't need to malefice anymore since it was safer in here – I told these guys already – so obviously that's going to last like six weeks tops." 

"Wow. I hope he believed me about brain damage, uh, existing, and didn't figure it was some exaggerated cautionary tale."

"Maybe in six weeks there'll already be some nice case studies for him!"

"Man, I wonder how he got in. I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but - he doesn't seem like an enclaver and Africa to a first approximation doesn't send indies, so..."

"He could be... maybe he emigrated?"

"Maybe he's the equivalent of the Chicago mundies - someone was over the weight limit and it grabbed the nearest person around -"

"I guess that makes the most sense? The whole thing's weird. What is it with this year and maleficers, anyway? Is that normal? My parents said it didn't normally start up in earnest until late junior year." 

"He didn't seem confused enough to be like the Chicago kids! I have no idea what is up with this year, it's definitely more than I was expecting too, and it's creeping out Suze, there was apparently big maleficer-related shenanigans last year."

"Some people come in as freshmen with plans to malefice later but they've almost never started before they even show up."

"What happened last year?"

Inquiring minds want to know. 

"I have not had an entire explanation, but I'm going to join Suze in the library after dinner and get more than 'maleficer-related shenanigans' out of her."

"Well," says Annisa lightly, "there might be more murder than our parents remember but the homework's not too bad yet!"

Julian makes a vague gesture in the direction of the school in general. "Please don't encourage it." 

"Sabah graduated the year before last and didn't say anything about more murder than usual, so - "

"I'm hoping I normally get the work period for homework, today I spent it undoing various people's potion side effects, but I get sort of a mini fake work period by having two history classes back to back in the same room, so I got some of my math done."

"Potion side effects?"

"So this is actually sort of embarrassing but in my defense some upperclassmen also took them! Guy was selling eidetic memory potions at breakfast. They don't work. Some people were having, like, migraines, I just - detected that mine didn't work. Got a spell out of the void from the Spanish Inquisition about it."

"Did they work on the outside and the Scholomance turns them or something?"

"Wow, did he not test them first?" 

"If you don't happen to get the migraine side effects they seem to work, and he was testing on folks from home, not students, so they didn't take as many notes as I do to notice that it was off."

"Damn. It'd be pretty incredible if they worked."