“When you play Scatter,” the prophet had said, “when it’s really good, it’s because you all move as one, as if one knows where the ball will fall before the other kicks it. And how does that one know? It’s because they’ve played together, felt and thought of each other in movement and stillness. It’s the Practice.”

She smiled while he fought to breathe through the abominable twitching blue circle that ringed his soul.

And who named the structure, who got to pick?

He stood, bound by something he could not name, something he would not have thought to identify until that moment because it seemed to him a given, like being born with bones and flesh, a set of relations deeper than any order, a law that was subject to no conversion or alteration because it was lodged in the veins, in the blood, in the very fact o

Look, this is simple, okay? Certain things are always with us.” She counted on her fingers. “One: scarcity. Limited space and resources. Two: the need to maintain order, which, when things are scarce, is always under threat. Three: surplus. Too many people, not enough stuff: the result is extra people. What are you going to do with all these extra

Can the University be a place of both training and transformation? she thought, and tears pricked her eyes as she answered, No. No, because it’s not possible to do both of those things at once. But

trying hopelessly to avoid smelling the guard-smell that was the odor of himself,

Every room, every gathering, every scene came with its own specific demands, and even when he had learned the basic orders of a place there might be changes that stemmed from causes imperceptible to him.

And he would think: I was there. That was the Practice. He saw that his urge to draw was indeed the desire to breathe and know and live, and that this was why the prophet had sheltered his gift.