“Now we’ve wasted enough time satisfying your curiosity about Abidela. It’s time to return to the reason we are here. Abidela, I expect you to keep up, and if you have questions, ask them. Now—”

Abi hadn’t expected a class as specific as this one, which was entirely about the structural strength and flexibility of various materials in minute detail—what they were most useful for, and how to calculate the load-bearing potential for each one. She’d probably missed a few that the class had already covered, but she had a good idea that she could catch up on those if one of the boys would lend her his notes. Which meant she had to make friends.

Well, Master Whiner had already given her a head start on that.

She still hadn’t gotten a good look at the whiner by the time the lesson was over, just a sense that he was taller than most of the rest, and a look at the top of his head, which sported blond hair. But luck, of a sort, was with her. She kept one eye on that particular head and saw from his body language that he intended to intercept her as they all filed out of this classroom and headed for the next.

Lovely. So he’s a bully as well as a whiner.

He was not what she expected, though she had already known he was tall. She’d expected someone large, bulky—bullies usually were—but he wasn’t especially muscled, and he did look very soft, quite in keeping with her assumption that he was wealthy. It didn’t look as if he ever needed to lift a hand to do anything for himself. He had a perfectly square face, a shock of blond hair, small eyes, a pouty mouth, and oddly small hands. He smirked as he made brief eye contact with her, and she sighed. This was either going to be a verbal confrontation or—a physical one.

The boy does not know what he is shoving his face into.

There was some jostling as two of his sycophants pinned her between them for a moment, blocking Master Morell from seeing her and what was happening to her, and he grabbed for her breast under cover of the crowd. There was a sudden rush of anticipatory energy as she recognized what he was doing and a surge of indignation. She, however, was a lot faster than he was, and she had been learning dirty tricks since she was old enough to train with Master Leandro. She knew exactly what to do because she’d practiced doing it so often she could make the move without even thinking about it.