"...Desta needs - or, could really be helped by - having someone that knows that spell that that guy used, around.  All the time.  I'm good at books.  If they'd let me, I could probably learn it."

...There is no amount of precociousness and rulefollowing that will convince policy on the orphanage's reference copies of spellcasting tomes to be bent, even as Alicia is otherwise rather tearing through every bit of knowledge she can get her hands on.  Nor will even a carefully-saved five-year-old's market allowance usually permit independent purchase of such tomes.

(Even if it did, it would be too dangerous to permit such a thing to be learned here; the Royal Academy has quite stringent standards for novices' practice facilities for a reason.)

...Hope springs eternal, nonetheless.

Regardless - the elevator arrives back at their floor, Giselda grabs the next handful of kids, and Desta and the others are left to find seats -

- under the watchful supervision of an elven woman, whose irises gently shimmer like aurorae.

...She'll leave introducing herself for later.  Lunch waits for no woman.

Opal, as she usually does, places herself a few seats inwards from a corner, to be a social buffer between - Alicia and Desta, this time - and everyone else.

...Alicia puts her plate next to Opal's, and then quickly grabs some paper.  'Would you like the corner seat, or can I have it?'

She can take the second seat from the end, sure. Presumably Alicia will move her plate when she goes for it.

Yeah, she will.  'Thank you!'

She eats at a steady pace, not making any attempt to socialize with the other kids.

Alicia eats quickly, though still thoroughly, not socializing either -

- and Opal has already gotten around to saying all that she needed to say about current events, to the people who needed to hear her, earlier, so she mostly just exchanges a few polite nothings, and collects some papers.

...Well, that should be more ominous than she thinks it is.  (But that sixth sense in the back of her mind is insisting that there's nothing wrong, there, and it has never been wrong before.)