Violet and the new riders move to new barracks where everyone gets a private room. The next morning lots of people are coming out of each other’s rooms after banging and being goofy about being caught. Because, yeah, that’s what plenty of 20 year-olds do after an intense situation.

Rhiannon was previously caught doing the walk of pride with another woman cadet, this morning it’s a man coming out of her room, and Violet just gives her shit about picking Sawyer. This and other little moments make the world seem bi-normative in the way our world is hetero-normative, and I dig it. (Pan? Anything-goes-normative? Idk, there’s just no judgment and it’s not a plot point in any way, yay!)

I lean back against my door and wait, testing my ankle by rolling it. It’s sore, just like every time I sprain it, but the brace and my boot hold it in place well enough to keep my weight on it. If I were anywhere else, I would call for crutches, but that would just put another target on my back

SQUEEMISH STORY COMING UP, SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T LIKE INJURY STORIES. One time in the army, I was helping to administrate a physical fitness test. Everyone has to pass one every six months or you get flagged and a flag means you can’t go to schools or get promotions. No punishment unless it happens a lot, but also blocks a lot of opportunities. So there was one guy who had an injury but thought “I’ll just push through it and go to the doctor after I pass this test.” His tendon snapped during the two-mile run. Calf muscle rolled up inside his leg like a god-damned slap bracelet. We could see it all bunched up in the wrong place. Dude couldn’t walk. Needed surgery. Fucked him up for a long time.

And yet, Violet never has concerns about stuff like this. Despite the fact that, theoretically, her tendons are a lot weaker than my old coworker. Every single injury she sustains is only ever given space in the narration, never in any consequences or any actions.

Also, get the damn crutches. I refuse to believe that in a school like this where EVERYONE is snapping bones and joints, crutches are some sort of special signifier. It’s really gross for a disabled author to treat a mobility aide as a weakness like this. (Remember the crutches attitude for later. There’s a scene I can’t wait to talk about it, I’m dying to talk about it, ugh, it has to do with disability aides.)

Rhiannon and Violet talk about all the coupleing-up that’s going on and Rhi asks why Dain isn’t doing his own post-coital walk, considering everyone saw them kiss.

“It’s not like that with us. I’d always hoped it would be, but when he kissed me – there was nothing there. Like. Nothing.” […]

“Well, that’s shitty to hear.” She hooks her arm through mine. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

I like this. A thing that happens, it sucks, no one is at fault, we acknowledge that it sucks and drive on. Perfectly reasonable event and reaction.

Violet and her friends go to lunch, where some people glare at Violet and others are obsequious in trying to get out of her way. Meanwhile, Jack is being iced out of his former friend group. The older members of the squad come and sit with the new riders and explain that power dynamics have shifted and while it’s not official, the unofficial pecking order is all based on how big and bad your dragon is.

One of the older kids, Imogen, just announces that Violet is going to start strength training with her outside of class. Since Imogen has been pretty nasty to her in the past, Violet is surprised, until she realized that Xaden probably ordered it due to the whole ‘if you die, I die’ thing.

Xaden Riorson is now in the business of keeping his mortal enemy alive.

I swear to god, this is even more annoying than the fact that Violet has to tell us about it every time she looks at him and gets horny. I mean, the man is hot so having butterflies makes sense, but this has always been such nonsense.

Later, they are ready for their first flying lesson.

“Now, we are going to mount, then follow a series of specific maneuvers your dragons already know. Your orders are simple today. Stay in your seat.”

Sorry, did I say lesson? Haha, nope. Like everything else in this ‘school,’ there are no lessons, there’s just “go fucking do it.” Why even have a school at all? Just give them pointy stuff and throw them at an enemy; it would have the same effect.

Once they start flying, Tairn once again uses his magic to keep Violet seated. She argues with him that he shouldn’t do that because he’ll need his magic and attention for fighting once they reach active duty.

Which, okay, may be true. Tairn says otherwise, but whatever. But why does that mean you have to do it today? There doesn’t appear to be any skill involved, just thigh strength, which you are going to be working on. So what does having no aides accomplish right now? In fact, another student falls off his dragon and doesn’t get caught, so he dies. And when Tairn gives in to her badgering and stops using magic, she falls off a lot and has to be caught. What is the benefit from doing this??? There is none. Not for Violet, not for the rest of the students, nothing.

Later in the day, Violet comes across Dain again. He brings up the kiss and says it never should have happened. Violet is at first relieved to find out they’re on the same page, until Dain keeps talking. Apparently he did like it, he just likes the rules more.

He’s an ass, but I have to admit, I kind of like the character going this way. It’s a least a new type of ass-ness. It’s an honest-to-god character flaw and not just someone being mean because we need to resolve a triangle. Yay, thumbs-up, book.

Also this world has weight machines. Like, I get that those are just pullies and junk and there’s no reason they can’t exist, especially in a made up world, but it really feels anachronistic. Lacks verisimilitude.

A month later, Violet is visiting the Scribes. Her new extra-duties assignment is to go there every day, return borrowed books, pick up things that the professors have requested. There are academic classes in this place, even though we hardly ever hear about them. That’s fine, we don’t need to sit in on classes that aren’t plot relevant. But why can’t you also do that for physical training, fuck. It’s so nonsensical and it would have taken so little to vastly improve this stupid college.

One of the scribes is Jesinia, of the opening epigraph, who is deaf and has been Violet’s friend for ages. They speak in sign language and chit chat about how Violet might die at any minute because her school is poorly designed. Pfth. Violet also asks for a book of fables, one she had to leave behind when she entered dragon school.

While she’s waiting for the requests, Violet talks telepathically to her dragons.

“It’s hard to love a second home as much as the first [re: the scribes’ libraries].”

I swallow. “It’s easy when the second home is the right one.” And that is what the Riders Quadrant has become to me – the right home. The longing for the kind of peace and solitude I found only here can’t match the adrenaline rush of flight.

Literally the last flight we saw you take, you kept falling off and arguing with your dragon. You constantly mention how death is around every corner. The only time you aren’t complaining is when you make small talk with your friends. If she’s supposed to be having any positive feelings towards her new school, it would be nice if the narration would show it, but that doesn’t happen.

Jesinia brings back the cart with all the requested books except for the one Violet wanted. Violet thinks that’s weird, then realizes that she’s never seen those particular fables in other books either. But, that bit of foreshadowing dropped, she forgets about it and moves on.

Back at the dragon school lunch table, everyone is talking about how excited they are to start doing magic. They’ll get the lesser magic ability once the bond with their dragons is strong enough, and then manifest their special personal magic (signet) at some point after that. However, if one doesn’t manifest a signet after a certain point, they’ll die from…like, magical buildup or something. But that’s awful rare, so no worries.

Also, one of the unbonded kids has bonded to a dragon who’s student died in the first flight class, so don’t forget, they’re still dangerous.

Skip to after their flight lesson uh….practice…outing? Violet is still falling off constantly and only alive thanks to Tairn catching her. Better hope he never misses. Definitely a better system than just letting him use magic. Dain approaches, and Tairn makes it clear he hates that guy.

Dain is mad that she’s still falling off her dragon every flight, or more specifically, that she didn’t tell him about it. They have a big argument.

“You’ve been flying for a month, and you’re still falling.” His voice follows me down the staircase.

“So is half the wing, Dain!”

Y’ALL SUCK AT DRAGON RIDING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST GET SOME BASIC FUCKING SAFETY EQUIPMENT THIS IS NOT FUCKING HARD TO FIGURE OUT.

It’s wild to me that this is kind of vaguely framed as a Violet-problem, but also they keep pointing out that it’s an everyone-problem, but they only point that out in off-hand asides. Like…????? What was the goal here? We have to give Violet a problem to overcome, but also we can’t have her being too weak because that’s not protagonist enough?

They have more fighting and a bunch of grievances come up. She basically dumps him. Cool.

But then there’s a disturbance. A student has just manifested his signet power, but it’s mindreading. We heard before that mindreaders aren’t allowed, they’re considered too dangerous and always killed after finding out that’s their power. This kid is freaking the fuck out, screaming, begging for the thoughts to stop, yelling out whatever stray thoughts he hears. Full meltdown. It’s a nice little bit of panic, I like it.

Until the kid starts yelling out Garrick’s (one of the marked kids) thoughts. Then Xaden gets involved and covers him in shadows that…??? Idk, do something? Then a cadre member comes in and snaps his neck. Dun dun dun.

Skip to night time. Tairn is mentally yelling at Violet, trying to get her to wake up. She finally does and finds out there’s a bunch of people in her room! They’re all there to kill her! Good thing she sleeps in her super-secret-special armor so the first stab doesn’t work. There’s a mad scrambling fight as they try to murder her, and she manages to keep them from doing so only because it’s a small space and they can’t all gang up on her efficiently. But they can do so inefficiently, and that’s enough after a while.

Right before one of them can manage to actually do the murder, everyone in the room except for Violet freezes.

Dun dun DUN!