The Poppy War

tting so still, to have nothing occupying her mind. She could barely stand three minutes of this torture, let alone sixty. She was so terrified of the thought of not thinking that she wasn’t able to accomplish it because she kept thinking about not thinking.

Jiang, on the other hand, could

ng, and at the end of the day whoever is alive is the side that wins. War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who remains.”

orm before,” Rin uttered.

Altan raised an eyebrow. She immediately regretted opening her mouth. Why had she said that? Why did she exist? She wanted to crumble into ashes and scatter away into the air.

But Altan just looked surprised,

ildered. Nezha looked dumbfounded.

Then Kitay began to clap. He was the only one.

and walked away whistling, petted Kitay on the head while making a pigeon-like cooing noise, and tried to snip Venka’s hair off with garden shears.

Whenever a student managed to pin him down to ask about his course, Jiang made a loud farting noise with his mouth and elbow and skirted away.

Rin alone continued to

ing on in Rin’s body, pointing to various places on the diagram and making some very vivid gestures with her hands.

“So you’re not dying, sweetheart, your body is just shedding your uterine lining.”

Rin’s jaw had been hanging open for a solid minute.

“What the fuck?”

r grace period of several hours before she began to panic about her next test.

She craved praise so deeply that she felt it in her bones. And just like an addict, she did whatever she could to get it.

Power dictates acceptability,” Kitay mused. “If the capital had been built in Tikany, I’m

she shouting?

“Rin, calm down.”

“I’m calm! I’m extremely calm!”

She was far from fucking calm. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to scream at someone. Anger pulsed through her

andering Tutor Feyrik, the man who had delivered her from Tikany, who had saved her from a miserable future in a forced marriage . . . that was unforgivable.

Rin took two steps toward the boy and punched him in the face.

Her fist co