"Did you have any classes you liked yesterday?" That is PROBABLY a safe question, unless her doom socks got her put into a lot of doom classes. 

"Welsh myth looks pretty easy and like it'll have Welsh spells in it later on."

"Poetry was nice!" adds Lissa. She pauses, poking slowly at her breakfast before taking another bite. "Um...what's maleficing?"

"Taking energy for spells out of something else. If it's just like, germs, mosquitoes, your furniture -" Shrug. "If it's mice, let alone people, it fucks you up. I'm strict mana, which means no germs mosquitoes or furniture for me, but most people aren't."

"Most people call the germs mosquitos furniture version 'cheating' instead of maleficing. It's not different in terms of how it, like, works, but nobody ever got brain damage from it."

"Can be hell on the furniture though." 

"Does that make it go bad like knives can?" she asks. "It sounds like it's not a very nice way to treat your furniture..."

"I don't think so, but if you put enough holes in a chair and then sit in it it'll collapse."

"I have never heard of furniture going bad. --I bet you're right, though, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if people who are strict mana have a lower rate of stuff going bad on them than people who aren't and nobody ever bothered doing statistics about it."

"Mum's spellbooks leave, but I think that's a different thing and they do it weird. She's never had an angry thing but we didn't have many... things."

"Yeah, spellbooks leaving is different from stuff going bad, they aren't worse wherever and whenever they show up again."

"Spellbooks leave and show up again? Do you mean, like, how the Void dumps spellbooks on you, or do they disappear and show up in the same place again?"

"Mostly they leave. Mum has them show up, sometimes, but that's weirder than leaving. You can make them do it less by being careful with them and keeping track of where they're supposed to be so you'll miss them right away if they do it - not that missing them helps, just being aware does."

"There has to be some way of making them show up, because the Scholomance does it. In our rooms through the Void and in the library. If it happens to your mum on your own then I'm less surprised than I would be if it were someone else but yeah I've never heard of that either."

Lissa nods. "Do you know why they show up more for your mom? Does she have, like an extra-fancy shelf for them or something?"

"She keeps them in a box. And when one shows up she lays them all out and gives them her blessing to leave and when she puts them away and it's the same number as before the one showed up."

"That is seriously cool. I always wonder how complicated spellbook cognition is."

"Awwww," says Lissa, eyes going a bit soft at the description of the blessing to leave. "Does the kind of spells they have matter any, you think?"

"It probably has to do with affinities but I don't know really."

"What's your affinity, I don't think you've said." 

"Why do you reckon."

"--Ah. Doom socks. Wow, that sucks. Uh. It'll probably be useful on graduation day?"

"With enough mana."

"Hm. Noted. Well, it could be worse, we never did figure out my affinity, maybe I'll turn out to have an affinity for chickens." 

El snorts.