The girl with the black fingernails turns to look at him, and - smiles, just a little carnivorous. "It's going great," she says in very faintly accented English. "We're here, after all. Which is more than you can say for some."

"I guess we are. Thinking of trading anything, now you're here?"

"Didn't bring much for barter. I'm more the self-sufficient type, all told." (A quirk to her lip, like she's told a very funny joke that she shouldn't be telling. "I could part with something if you really wowed me, though. Maybe one of Lao's potions, it's not like I'll run out."

"I don't know if I'll be wowing anyone yet, I haven't done any market research. I've got food from outside, can't promise it's popular with people who have choices but it's the kind of thing people do buy voluntarily."

At "people who have choices" her smile widens ever so slightly.

"It is indeed, how clever. And who ever has enough choices? Especially here. I'd say we've made the choices we're going to make... for the most part. Speaking of which I'm Song Jian - Jian given name, Song family name. This is Xu Lao, same. I'm creative, he's artifice."

Oh, boy, he has said a thing with a meaning that he missed. Uh-oh. Having made the choices they're going to make... are they going to die, is that what's happening?

"Valiant, Val for short, surname Reed. Personally I think every moment brings with it its own choices - and, you know, we're not in Chicago, so how bad can it be, right?" Here's hoping she says something revelatory about that.

"You are damn right. Imagine having literally everything you know vanish out from under your feet. Instead of just, you know, figuratively."

Lao says something in, probably, Mandarin.

Jian rolls her eyes. "Don't speak Mandarin in front of the nice freshman. -unless you already speak it and I've just been wasting my time?"

"Nope, just English and Spanish and a tiny bit of some other things."

Jian laughs. "Oh, shit, you're good, I had no clue - don't worry, I'm not going to eat you or whatever it is you thought was going to happen if you fucked up. Damn. I almost want to keep you just for that."

Damn. So on the one hand, he has no idea how to figure that comment out without admitting how little clue he has right now. On the other hand, she might have just figured out how little clue he has right now. His smile falters and then comes back.

"You want to keep me and you won't even eat me? What a waste. What gave me away?"

"Nobody who was raised by people who give a shit if they live or die has two languages, even less so bits of others. You're not from Chicago, but you're from within a couple hundred miles, I'm guessing? Unless the population density in America's lower than I thought. See, what happened in Chicago, for those of us who don't know what's going on, is that they were going to send... I forget, about ten kids here? And they didn't. Because they all died. And the school is dumb. Dumb as a pile of bricks. So it said, huh, I need ten more kids, I can do that. And it picked up ten kids! Kids with magic. But not, notably, kids who knew about magic."

She spreads her arms. "Welcome to the Scholomance!"

"That's the coolest way to die, though! Being kidnapped to a school I can't possibly succeed at, I mean, not whatever happened to them."

"That's an attitude I, personally, can get behind. Anyway, I really am very impressed by your bluff and that's enough that I'm willing to get you up to speed on how to minimize your chances of dying, so listen up."

"Magic is awful. It sucks. You get the fuel for magic, called mana, by doing shit that sucks. You then can cast spells with it. You need to know exactly what a spell is going to do before you cast it. The school will give you books with spells in them. Unfortunately for you, it will give you spells in any language you know, and it can sometimes be very generous with what counts as knowing a language, and if you ignore spells for petty reasons like not knowing the language, the school may get mad. Get a spellbook in a language you don't know, come to me and I can find out who can help you out."

"The main reason magic sucks is that there are creatures everywhere called mals, which may have already tried to eat you. Your top priority is not to be eaten. I can give you two English spells for that purpose: a basic ward, and a basic weapon. Mostly, if a mal is coming for you, you want to run, because you are squishy, but if it's coming into your room at night you want to zap it. It's not guaranteed to work. I'm gonna be totally honest, you have a significant chance of dying even though I think you're cool."

"Other reasons you might die include that the school itself sucks. You need to go to your classes and do your homework or it will kill you. You will be assigned weekly maintenance. Do that, or the school will lock you out of the cafeteria, and you will die. The cafeteria is not safe. It has food, so you need to go anyway. Do not take food unless you see someone else take that food, or until you learn a way to detect mals and/or poison. Prioritize that, by the way."

"You will be learning magic. You will need to decide whether to specialize in languages, which gets you old spells in old languages; creative writing, which is writing new spells in the languages you know; artificing, which lets you make cool magic shit; or alchemy, which lets you make potions. You are not equipped to specialize in languages. Otherwise, world's your oyster."

"Lao, anything I missed?"

"Mm. Jian likes you. That's a resource. Don't spend it quick, but spend it."

"I meant anything I missed about magic, not basic social interaction, but thanks."

"I'm very likable, I'm sure I can do better than this when I've got my feet under me. So whatcha want for those spells you mentioned?"

It remains to be seen whether any of those claims are true but it is true that she wants him to learn two English spells (possibly as a prank, but) and go to her if he gets a spellbook in Latin or French or something. It is probably true that she wants him to think she likes him.

"I'll tell you now it's minor enough arcana that everybody's got some version of them, but mine have two advantages: they're in English, and I already know you don't know them. I want something decent for them, but I don't know if that's outside food or if you had a Swiss army knife in your pocket or what."

"Are Swiss army knives rare here? You don't have better versions of everything they do?"

"Every student brings forty kilos max. A Swiss army knife is good to have, but not everyone has the room - and some of them, like you, didn't know they were coming. And sometimes, things break. I can leverage it better than you can, and I think that's a fair deal for giving you some tips and a couple of tricks."

"It's true, I do have outside food and a Swiss army knife. They'd have to be some damn good spells to trade away my knife and come out less likely to die, but..."

"Your first project in Artificing is probably gonna be a dagger, if it isn't a flashlight-crystal. The useful thing about a Swiss army knife is the tools, not the blade."

Wow, his two other knives and knuckle-duster are not going to fetch much, are they.

"Makes sense. Which tools are you hoping I've got on mine?"

"Screwdriver's big. Especially if it's bigger than eyeglass. Scissors are barely worth the weight, everybody's got sharps. Corkscrew and bottle opener are actually more useful than they sound. If it's one of the ones that has pliers, cool. A file's great."

"More useful than they sound, huh? Then maybe you want to throw in another spell? I've got a corkscrew and a bottle opener, I can show you if you won't freak out at me going for a weapon." Corkscrew, bottle opener, scissors, knife, saw, nail clipper, and something he hasn't been able to identify that might actually be a metal toothpick. At least on the the one he's willing to admit to having right now.

Possibly he's getting scammed here and magic isn't even real but who knows. He got here somehow, right?

"Ballsy! Sure, I'll throw in.. hmm, adjustable light spell? Same principle as the others, it might keep you alive long enough to learn the real shit."

"Sure, sounds good." If it's that easy he probably didn't haggle hard enough but hey. Now he knows something important about the price of a Swiss army knife here. "What's a light spell good for?"

"Mentioned the monsters, right? They like hanging out in the dark. You don't want to keep a light spell on all the time, but it's good for checking in corners and stuff. And if you pump more mana into it it'll flash enough to blind and stun."

"Cool."

"Notably you don't usually want to use it that way. It's usually more efficient to fry the bastards. But if something's too big to fry, flashing at it might make it decide you're not worth it - or at least give you a chance to run."

Just like with animals.

Fuck. Just like them.

"I think I understand."

"Good. I can give you intel but I can't give up resources, you know? And I want you to go on confusing the shit out of everyone around you and surviving until I'm enough of a power that I can spend my leverage on petty shit like keeping someone alive because they suck less than most people."

"I suck less than most people! Certified forty-ninth percentile suckitude! - More importantly, how do people at magic kidnapping wizard school suck?"

"Ugh. I mostly know the Beijing kids but they're - everybody's raised from birth to survive, you know, so they don't care about anything that isn't that. The only people worth talking to are the ones who've given up on survival or the ones who're fucking crazy. Lao's the former, I'm the latter."

"I aspire to be fucking crazy, myself. Can't say I succeed." That feels like a dumb thing to say but he's starting to really feel how late it is. Or at least how late it was back in Close Enough To Chicago.

"Well, we've all got something to work on."