“Other possibilities?”
“After what you did to the mirror bugs at the Little Fog settlement, any of the big universities would be glad to have you as a student. You could probably even get a sponsor, so it wouldn’t cost Papa and Mama anything.”
“Lan! Don’t talk nonsense.” I went back to my weeding, but Lan didn’t leave.
“It isn’t nonsense. You have talent and power; you deserve to get the training you need to use them properly.”
I sat back on my heels, rested my muddy hands on my green weeding apron, and just looked at him for a minute.
From the time I was thirteen, when I almost blew up my Uncle Earn at my sister’s wedding dinner, I’d had more and more trouble doing normal, Avrupan-type magic spells. It had only been a month or two since I’d figured out that the trouble was mostly in my head. I’d been so worried about being an unlucky thirteenth child that I’d nearly talked myself right out of doing any magic at all, ever, on account of being afraid of what might happen if I lost my temper. For the past five years, Aphrikan magic had been the only sort I’d had any luck with. I was still getting accustomed to the notion that it was a safe thing for me to work Avrupan spells at all.
Oh, I’d learned the basic Avrupan magic theories in school, like everyone else, but I had a lot of catching up to do on the practical side. I still had trouble even with simple things like housekeeping spells. And here was Lan, proposing that I go off to college as if it was me who was the double-seven magician.
“And don’t go objecting because you’re a girl,” Lan went on. “There’s lots of girls who study advanced magic. And Mama doesn’t need you here, really — not when there’s only you and Robbie and Allie left at home.”
He ran on like that for a while; I just sat and watched. It was plain as day that he didn’t expect me to disapprove more than a token, for form’s sake. He ran down a whole long list of answers to objections I hadn’t made and worries I hadn’t mentioned. It was some time before he noticed that I wasn’t saying anything at all.