#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Saving the world is a test no school of magic can prepare you for in the triumphant conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate. FINALIST FOR THE HUGO AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Paste, Publishers Weekly The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it’s all we dream about: the hideously slim chance we’ll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls. And now the impossible dream has come true. I’m out, we’re all out—and I didn’t even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother’s prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn’t kill enclavers, I saved them. Me and Orion and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: We saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves everywhere. Ha, only joking! Actually, it’s gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war. And the first thing I’ve got to do now, having miraculously gotten out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in. Praise for A Deadly Education “A gorgeous book about monsters and monstrousness, chockablock with action, cleverness, and wit . . . Naomi Novik deliciously undoes expectations about magic schools, destined heroes, and family legacies.” —Holly Black, #1 New York Times bestselling author “Eyeball-meltingly brilliant . . . Novik is, quite simply, a genius.” —Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of And I Darken “The Scholomance is the dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for, and its wise, witty, and monstrous heroine is one I’d happily follow anywhere—even into a school full of monsters.” —Katherine Arden, New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale “Novik skillfully combines sharp humor with layers of imagination to build a fantasy that delights on every level. I loved this brilliant book.” —Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series “Novik puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school. . . . A must-read for fantasy fans.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) Praise for The Last Graduate “The climactic graduation-day battle will bring cheers, tears, and gasps as the second of the Scholomance trilogy closes with a breathtaking cliff-hanger.” — Booklist (starred review) “Sardonic students, gruesome monsters, growing friendships, and a touch of romance create a highly readable story. . . . Book three can’t come fast enough.” — Library Journal (starred review) “Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series, about kids at a preposterously deadly magical school, stands out in a ridiculously crowded field. Its sheer viciousness, its grim humor, and its complicated interpersonal politics are an immediate draw.” — Polygon “Truly one of the best fantasy series out there right now, and it’s not close.” — Culturess Naomi Novik is the New York Times bestselling author of A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate, the award-winning novels Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and the Temeraire series. She is a founder of the Organization for Transformative Works and the Archive of Our Own. She lives in New York City with her family and six computers. Chapter 1 the yurt The last thing Orion said to me, the absolute bastard, was El, I love you so much. And then he shoved me backwards through the gates of the Scholomance and I landed thump on my back in paradise, the soft grassy clearing in Wales that I’d last seen four years ago, ash trees in full green leaf and sunlight dappling through them, and Mum, Mum right there waiting for me. Her arms were full of flowers: poppies, for rest; anemones, for overcoming; moonwort, for forgetfulness; morning glories, for the dawn of a new day. A welcome-­home bouquet for a trauma victim, meant to ease horror out of my mind and make room for healing and for rest, and as she reached to help me, I heaved myself up howling, “ Orion! ” and sent the whole thing scattering before me. A few months—­aeons—­ago, while we’d still been in the midst of our frantic obstacle-­course runs, an enclaver from Milan had given me a translocation spell in Latin, the rare kind that you can cast on yourself without splitting yourself into bits. The idea was that I’d be able to use it to hop around from one place to another in the graduation hall—­all the better to save people like enclavers from Milan, which is why she’d handed me a spell worth five years of mana for free. You couldn’t normally use it to go long distances,