"--Hi! I'm Lucy. And this is my brother Wilbur."

Two spiders, one for her and one for her brother. Definitely a strategy.

"Nice to meet you both!"

Adam resists the impulse to extend a hand to shake. In this place, he figures that would come off as either threatening or naive.

"I'm sure you get this a lot, but can I ask about the spiders?"

"They're familiars! Wilbur has a thread affinity and silk from Darwin's Bark Spiders is the strongest mundane organic compound in the world."

"Oooh, a thread affinity! My sister would love that; she's artificing track. Is that how you guys made your outfits?"

"Yes, yes it is. We're hoping to make a major business of selling the stuff."

"That's what I was hoping you would say! I should introduce you to my sister; she knows everyone in Seattle enclave. She could find people for you to sell to."

"Awesome. It's not urgent, we don't have production in progress yet, but our clothes serve as a perfectly good proof-of-concept."

"Cool! My room number is 629B, if you wanna come let me know when you have some material to sell."

"Is that so! I'm 630B."

"Wild. Wanna meet Talia now? She looks to be disengaging from her enclave-mates finally, and I think your silk outfits would be sufficient demonstration for her that you have something worth buying."

"Sounds excellent."

Adam leads Lucy and Wilbur through the crowd to a tall blonde girl.

"Hey, Talia! I've found some people I'd like you to meet. They have a business opportunity for you."

"Already? Nice. Hey, guys, I'm Talia Green, Seattle enclave. What are your names?"

"My name is Lucy Warren, and this is my brother Wilbur. He has a thread affinity and we both have spider familiars. He made our outfits."

"Nice to meet you guys! I'll have people I can put you in touch with, for sure, once your business takes off. I'm not the only artificer from Seattle."

"She says they're called Darwin's Bark Spiders, and their silk is, like, super strong."

"Is that true?" Talia looks at Lucy and Wilbur intently. "Would you guys be willing to make a demonstration of that once you have some more silk? I would be interested in buying some myself, too."

"Sure, we can have an unenchanted test strip for people to demonstratively fail to stab. Admittedly I don't know that it will hold up to all possible enchantments one could put on a dagger, but it will hold up against the teeth of most kinds of mals that will make it out of the graduation hall."

Talia smiles. "Sounds good to me! That will be very popular. I gotta go catch up to my enclave-mates now, so Adam, if you'd let me know when the business is off the ground--"

"For sure. We've already exchanged room numbers."

"Excellent. It was nice meeting you, Lucy and Wilbur, see you around."

"See you!" Lucy says brightly. 

"So, what else can you tell me about yourselves, or is there anything more you'd like to know about me?"

"What's your affinity?"

"If I had to put it in one word, I'd say 'charm'. I'm good at spells that, say, alter people's appearances, or make their voices more compelling, or just change the general impression they give off. If you know anyone who would be interested..."

Translation: I'm admitting I'm using this for something, so you don't have to worry about me being naive or lying, but also I'm not using it on myself, so you don't have to worry I'm mind-controlling you.

"I have met this one girl who has a weird doom-y aura for no apparent reason."

"Huh, I wonder if she'd be interested in my help.

...I wonder if anyone else would be interested in me giving them that sort of thing, come to think of it. Being scary can have its own advantages in here; I should look into spells along those lines."

"Maybe it's Maybelline." 

Adam snorts.

"Really, though, let me know if you think of any use you might have for it. I'd be happy to trade for a spider silk outfit of my own, when your business gets to that point."

"We'll let you know! Even if we can't personally use it, we've already arranged one three-way trade today."

"I bet you'll end up doing something even more complicated than that if you end up doing business with Talia!"

"I wouldn't be surprised! She does a lot of social networking?"

"Oh, yeah. She's got her clique—Seattle enclavers from the year before us, and she does outreach for them."

"That's cool! I've made connections with a surprising number of enclaves, which I can only credit to spider silk being excellent."

"It is excellent! It's a very clever strategy."

"I'm very pleased with our outcomes so far! I knew it was a good strategy but I wasn't expecting it to be this good this fast."

"Hey, whatever else people can say about us, we enclavers have survived this long because we recognize talent when we see it."

She giggles delightedly, partly because she is feeling relevant emotions and partly because that seems to be the thing to do when an enclaver says something like that to you. 

Flattery was totally the right way to go! Look at Adam trying to be charming and succeeding.

"Do you guys have thoughts on what you'll be specializing in? I'm going creative writing."

"Wilbur's artificing, obviously. I'm languages."

"Cool! Which ones do you speak? I have French and Latin, myself."

And also Mandarin but he sucks at it. At this point it would probably be strategic to show some vulnerability. He can't bring himself to do it, anyway.

"I have Latin! And Japanese, and Basque, and some clusters of Indian and Chinese and Doggerland languages."

"Some clusters?"

"Dad's a linguist. He says knowing a bajillion languages isn't actually a normal thing for linguists but apparently it's a him thing."

"Nice! It's a good thing your parents have worked so hard to prepare you."

Not that Adam is jealous, or anything.

"Mum married a mundane because she couldn't find a wizard who met her standards who was interested in going in on her 'exactly one kid, twins notwithstanding, and then work your ass off to prepare them' plan. I'm not complaining, Dad's great."

"That is a sensible plan! It's clearly worked well for you. My Dad is great too; he's also worked his ass off to prepare me. Of course, most of that work went into the marriage to my mom itself; that's how he got into Seattle enclave."

He is technically not criticizing his mom! Look how not getting involved in enclave politics he is.

"Makes sense! Mum never had a prospect from an enclave like that, she'd probably have compromised on the only one kid thing if she had, enclave kids are so much safer than indies."

"No kidding. My mom didn't want a huge family, though, she just had three: Talia, me, and Melissa, my younger sister. By the way, those spiders wouldn't happen to be a breeding pair, would they? If you're still...doing business next year, Melissa would want a baby spider or two. Her affinity is insects."

(Still alive next year. These kids have damn good chances for indies, from what Adam has seen, but he can't not think about the possibility. He thinks about it for himself too! But it would be rude to say it, so he doesn't.)

"They are a breeding pair. Just insects or arthropods in general?"

Adam mentally facepalms. Melissa would've slapped him for that if she were here. Well, no, she wouldn't have, she's too nice. But she would have rolled her eyes at him, which would have been worse.

"Sorry, I misspoke. I'm used to saying 'insects' cause most of what she's done so far is with bees, but it's, like, land-dwelling arthropods? She hasn't been able to get anything done with lobsters, but she warded the house against spiders since Mom was complaining about them."

"'Bugs,'" she suggests. "It's not a taxonomic term, albeit it can be used to include some creepy-crawlies like worms that don't quite fit. I would be happy to sell your sister some spiders, assuming we live, which is I think a pretty good assumption but if you wanted to take steps contingent against our not surviving we won't be offended."

"Let me know when you have some baby spiders you're willing to part with and I'll see what I have to trade by then. I do think you living is a good assumption, though! ...That's a higher compliment than it sounds like, coming from me."

"Sure thing. Pity your sister is coming in next year instead of in two, or I'd suggest you bribe a senior to take out a letter suggesting she contact our mum for all the spider research she and Dad did after we figured out Wilbur's affinity."

"Yeah, that's a shame."

That would be a more sensible spacing of one's children, wouldn't it? The original plan had been Talia and then Melissa with a year between them, and no Adam. Technically he is not supposed to talk about that, but also everyone in Seattle knows so it's not like it can actually be kept secret, but apparently talking about things like that with someone you just met is sharing "too much information" so Adam still won't.

"Oh well. What's she done with bees, that sounds fascinating."

"She's gotten them to produce honey with unusual alchemical properties! Her long term goal is to make some replacements for hard to acquire potion ingredients; it would be a great boon for the enclave if she could pull it off. She'll have to put it on hold while she's in here; my dad will take care of them until she gets out."

If she gets out. Adam knows the people he loves aren't invincible, any more than he is.

"That's cool. And anything that disincentivizes people from making quattria is a good thing."

"Agreed!"

"I wonder how taking eusocial insects as familiars would work. Would it have to be one at a time, or could you take a whole hive as a single organism? Not a particularly practical question to be asking right now, I admit."

"I don't know! Melissa might be able to find out someday."

"That'd be fun. Maybe someday I shall be able to send my kid to the Scholomance with a hive of carnivorous hornets for a familiar."

"Ooh, carnivorous, that would be useful!

...Say, is that how you're..."

He gestures at the spiders.

"If your question is 'do we feed the spiders mal grubs' the answer is yes."

"That's really smart! And it's stickin' it to the mals, to not just cull their population but get something useful out of them."

"I dunno how much it's possible to stick it to them, but I'll take what I can get."

"Exactly! Gotta take pride in the small victories, or you'll go crazy."

Oops. That was a bit too honest. But not, in itself, a dangerous thing to say.

Wryly: "I think 'survival' is about the size of victory to aim for."

Oh, good, she finished the thought! Between the two of them, they've pretty much stated Adam's entire philosophy.

"Yeah. For yourself, or your family, or if you're really good, both."

She glances at Wilbur. 

"Guess I'll just have to be really good then."

"Same. Talia was for me, so I'll be for Melissa."

"It's easier with a twin. We'll have each other through graduation."

"Yeah, you will. At least I have my enclave-mates in my year."

He doesn't sound too excited about that.

"Allies are useful. Even though they're not the same as family."

"For sure."