Holy shit what yes.

Obviously it's not, like, a going thing, having a few interesting independents at your table every day for the first couple weeks is a good way to figure out which ones are worth paying attention to, but still. 

She does not look at Malak excitedly or jump up and down, because she's not five. 

Yes absolutely she will take a seat with Marcy and Boston. After they get their food from the counter third from the right, of course. Though, hold on -

"Hey, can you two hold my spot in line? I want to see what's up with that kid with all the muffins, I'll share with you if I can get some out of him."

A couple minutes later she's back with two muffins. "I think he's trying to lure people to sit with him, which - isn't working so well, looks like people are mostly doing what I did, taking some and leaving. Either of you got a cheap poison test? It's early in the year and some other kids have eaten them and not keeled over yet so they're probably fine, but..."

"Why not just...tell people you'll give them a muffin if they sit with you?" She mutters something under her breath. "- seem fine."

"Trying to make people think it's not transactional and they just like you? Whatever it is isn't working very well." Marcy cheerfully accepts her muffin and puts it on her tray (she can have Abigail double-check it in exchange for half) and goes for the scrambled eggs like someone who's aiming to transition from "tiny induction pack mule" to "reasonable-sized teenager with any melee combat options".

"Yeah, I think Marcy's got it. I did warn him that I was not going to be the only person taking advantage of his generosity if he kept at it like that but I don't know if he listened."

There is in fact plenty of food here. Malak grabs some eggs, and rather dry looking breakfast sausage, and oatmeal.

"That is the most enthusiasm for cafeteria eggs that I've ever seen." (They are also the first cafeteria eggs Malak has ever seen, but she knows the stereotype.)

Marcy shrugs and says "It's protein" like she hasn't realized food has traits other than those listed on nutrition facts labels and grabs a sausage and some mildy sad-looking but probably edible cantelope.

"I think it's all got protein? It's all nutrient paste magicked up to provide different sensory experiences. I guess I don't know if it's all equally nutritious nutrient paste but I don't know why they'd bother with different kinds. It's all halal, even though I think this sausage is pretending to be pork."

Annisa fills her tray delightfully unconcerned with mals (though still looking). Really she thinks the rich people sabotage themselves by getting their children accustomed to delicious food and lots of variety, but she's not going to express that opinion to an enclaver and especially not one who doesn't even seem so sabotaged. Unless she can think of a way to frame it as a dig on New York, she's guessing those go over well (though maybe only from Bostoners, not outsiders?)

"I heard some speculation that what you think you're eating affects how you digest it but there wasn't a controlled study or anything." She finishes loading up her tray, taking a bit more than she plans to eat in case another Bostonian had bad luck at one of the less-protected counters, and when the others are done they can go sit down.

Annisa is pretty sure that variety makes you hungrier, which is why no one gets fat eating just rice even if they eat as much as they want and why Americans are fat, but she isn't actually sure she knows what a controlled study is so she's pretty sure she shouldn't be trying to participate in this conversation. How would you even control a study? She doesn't think they usually have personalities to start with?

"Well I think I'm eating nutrient paste, so who knows how that'll work out" She takes a bite of her sausage and makes a face.

" - OK, no, actually I seem to think I am eating pork sausage, which as it turns out is gross. Does anyone who hasn't spent their whole life avoiding this stuff want to trade?"

"I'll swap you for my eggs." They're very rubbery. 

Marcy gets Abigail to confirm the wholesomeness of the blueberry muffin and splits it with her, then gives some of her eggs to Franklin in exchange for a potato wedge and starts eating. "So is anyone else looking forward to Maleficaria Studies or is that just me?"

"Thanks."

Rubbery eggs are better than pork sausage, though she was kind of hoping she could trade with Marcy or another Boston enclaver because small acts of kindness and reciprocity help build goodwill. Not that Annisa's goodwill isn't valuable, but she's already locked down a lot of trust with her. She really wants Marcy to think well of her and every little bit counts.

"I don't know if it's the class I'm most excited for, but sure, looking forward to it."

"Oh, I'm definitely most looking forward to Shop." 

"Lab for me," says Abigail.

"My father would be so disappointed in me if he saw how long I made faces before I moved shop out of Monday morning. I really want to start building stuff." 

"Also shop, though Mediterranean secret societies is a close runner-up. I've requested Arabic for language lab, hoping the school lets me get away with it and I can use that block for other things. Did you get Intro Theory of Artificing?" The question is directed mainly at Marcy.

A girl shows up with a breakfast tray, an Asian boy following her, and absolutely no sense that you can't just walk up to people who are sitting at enclave tables, as long as you already know them. She doesn't sit down, she just casually walks up and starts talking. "Hey Malak. How'd scheduling go, got anything good?"

Fuck fuck fuck those kids have power sharers fuck 

"Very pleased to meet you, Naima, I think she looks busy – " 

Oh NO poor Malak also who the fuck does that??? She doesn't look like one of the confused Americans who doesn't know anything!! Annisa....will rehearse at bedtime graceful ways of handling this situation both as a bystander whose reputation is nonetheless mildly at stake here - Malak's the one who got her the introduction to Marcy - and as the primary victim should, god forbid, it ever happen to her. Right now she's coming up completely empty. She can't say "we're in the middle of something" because if Boston likes to be superficially more polite than that - the Brits do - then she's been too blatant and been rude. Malak's best move is probably to say "yeah, I'll show you later" and hope the girl can TAKE A HINT but if the girl could TAKE A HINT she wouldn't be doing this.

... Oh no.

"Oh. Hi Naima. I think this table is full?" GO AWAY PLEASE "Let's catch up at lunch?"

She is seriously tempted to vanish off the face of the earth forever.

Julian cannot read the enclave kids but that south asian girl looks like she wants them dead. He's not sure if one person can look apologetic and slightly protective but also totally uninvolved all at the same time but he sure is trying his best. 

Huh. Normally, Naima would feel like a table not having more seats isn't a reason not to trade schedules while she's standing here, but Malak additionally seems really stressed about something? Weird. Maybe she's having a really stressful interaction and needs to focus on it, or something? Yeah, that seems like the vibe she's getting here.

"Cool, talk to you then," says Naima, and she walks off looking for a different table.

Probably that was not a deliberate act of sabotage because who hates someone else that much on the first day of school but also can you possibly be that oblivious? Maybe she's...blind, and can only sense life-force and not see power-sharers- she's really stretching, here - 

She would shoot Malak a sympathetic glance but she's working quite hard on maintaining a range of facial expressions that can't plausibly further offend Marcy. She will give Malak a hug later - wait, where did that thought come from, they're not friends - she will give Malak a sympathetic glance later, there.

THANK YOU GOD FOR SHOWING NAIMA SOME SENSE.

" - So that was Naima, she's from Cairo, has a real entrepreneurial spirit and traded away all of her social skills for a strong healing affinity."

(And Julian is gone. He was really expecting his most stressful moment in the Scholomance thus far to involve something with more teeth.) 

When something awkward happens it's often a good strategy to pretend it didn't so that everyone else can join you in a collective delusion if they want. She mentally rewinds the last thirty seconds and says "I didn't get intro theory of artificing, which is too bad, it sounds great. I did get what looks like a start on math-for-artificers alongside algebra 2, though, and the German stuff I wanted, so not a bad pull all told." Maybe Malak will need help with her artificing theory homework and show her all the cool things she does not ill-wish her fellow students that is not proper. She can try again next semester.

Phew, that is a relief. God bless Marcy - God has already blessed Marcy a ton, but, hey, Malak is grateful, God can bless her some more if He feels like it.

"I got a pretty good assortment, only really disappointed in 'Malice and Maleficaria in 18th century French poetry' Monday mornings - more mal studies is fine, but French is my weakest language and I know nothing about European poetry."

Maybe the school noticed Malak had recently acquired a French spellbook, but she can't say that.

"Yeah, if I have a hard time with anything it'll be Akkadian Divinations. I'm hoping we'll get translations of the primary sources; if it's meant for fluent Akkadian speakers only I'm going to be in a hurry."

" - Ooh, Akkadian. My brother - had Akkadian." oops she didn't mean to pause there but she almost said 'has' and - now it's awkward and a little sad. Uh, moving on, "Do you have any other semitic languages or are you coming at it blind?"

"Pretty much blind, I'll probably be spending all my language labs on it either way." Worst case someone else in the class will be better prepared and she can buy tutoring, ideally with different tutoring. "It'll be a good springboard to Aramaic later if I decide to go that route instead of Old English via German."

"Well I'd offer to help if that wouldn't be outrageously stupid on my part, I've got a few semitic languages. Be careful not to get any Sumarian, I hear it's a bitch to learn and all the written corpus uses the Akkadian script."

"Good to know, thanks. It's funny how the scheduling can push you in new directions with languages; I don't think that happens in artificing as much because you get some choice of projects. I guess you can be mostly a metalwork person and end up in fiber classes; that's not too different."

"There's not that many specialized artificing classes, fewer than there are languages. And - I think sometimes the school is trying to be helpful, kind of, but has a lot more things it can target with lit and history? Like if instead of mediterranean secret societies it had given me a class on ninjas I would see where it was coming from even though I've got no Japanese at all. But there's no reason for it to stick a fabric artificer in a stonecutting class apart from being mean."

AAAAAH Annisa's language incompetence is going to interfere with getting in with Boston even though she doesn't have an accent in English and doesn't need any languages, AAAARGH. It takes her a while to think of anything she can say that isn't "I know none of those languages"...

"You can see bits and pieces where it would be being helpful, if the school was as safe as they'd intended it - I got thrown into some Javanese literature that'd be actively fun except for how it'll have ten kids in it and all of them, like me, probably immediately swapped out."

"Man, I bet there's a range of class size where it would be safe enough to be worth it, but because there are too many homerooms to coordinate nobody can be sure they're at that size, so they drop it, and because that always happens it's rational to drop it even though if there were perfect realtime communication between homerooms you could get a quorum. Not to say your thing was that or that you didn't do the rational thing under the circumstances."

"Yeah it seems like - I'd be much more interested in a class on ninjas or Akkadian divinations or - really anything in the vast expanse of human knowledge that's focused a little farther from the Bosphorus - if learning twenty sentences of Japanese or whatever wasn't potentially life-threatening, and being in a small class or doing badly on the homework or not having enough time to work out or make things in shop weren't all life-threatening."

Adults can research anything they want, adults can go to college thinking about being an adult is not proper either. "Exactly. And a lot of that stuff would be useful. . . Do you think death rates would be higher or lower if undone classwork didn't come at you? I mean, does anyone actually have such high time preference that they need to be threatened into learning things that keep them safe?" Oh damn, that was probably rude, what if one of them has a sibling with high time preference or something.

"With no undue offense intended towards the rest of our year - I think some people do have such high time preference. Probably not by sophomore year, though."

"I assume the kids who need to be motivated by their homework maybe eating them aren't going to make it anyway - like, the school can't force you to learn enough to make it out."

"Right. If you have such high time preference you won't study a useful spell when you might need it, you probably still won't study it if the school is threatening you. Maybe it helps the school gather mana or something."

" - Like Malia? I don't think the English wizards were ruthless enough to put their kids inside a giant metal maleficer to keep them safe."

Annisa has no idea what time preference is. Note to future Annisa, look that up? "It's not malia if we're doing it willingly. Ish."

"Yeah, if the school gets mana from us doing homework it might want us to do it even if it's not the most efficient thing to do that week. The designers must've had some kind of reason, right, it costs mana to animate the homework."

"Oh, I thought you meant - sending homework to kill the bad students and harvest them for mana. If it's just skimming a bit off the top of our homework effort - "

" - OK but right now everyone who's going for valedictorian is trying to play it safe, pick classes that aren't so hard that they're risking having to retake or get attacked by a late essay. Maybe if failing was safer, people would do harder things and that would get the school more mana?"

(Malak has also not encountered the term 'time preference' but from context has inferred it to mean 'preference for having free time')

"Personally if failing were safe I'd never leave the shop. Probably that gets the school less mana because I love shop."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I like enough things not to focus on exactly one like that but it's still unlikely that I'd do the exactly optimal thing from the school's perspective by accident if it wasn't trying to steer me at all."

Ah, to be an enclaver and have it matter at all what you like. If Annisa has to project intellectual curiosity to get in with Boston she will but she doesn't have intellectual curiosity because you get to have one priority and hers is surviving.

Malak would do harder things because - that's how you grow as a person, right, and if God/the school suggested she should learn Russian that would be reason enough for her to do it if it wouldn't endanger her. But she has no idea how to explain that in a way that'd make sense to Marcy or not be insulting to Annisa who has just said that she'd do the opposite.

"I think - if we weren't going to die at all, then it'd be entirely reasonable to make us have broader horizons. But as it is - what are broader horizons worth if you get eaten in the graduation hall with a fantastically comprehensive understanding of the world. So insofar as the school's pushing us any direction other than 'well equipped in four years', it's - shaped for some kind of fantasy world where the scouring equipment still works. Which it would be, since when it was designed, the scouring equipment did work."

"Yeah, it's totally possible the school is doing the wrong thing because it failed to adapt and it should be skimming less mana and letting us optimize our schedules for useful combat stuff instead of homework effort. Or it thinks it's better at forcing us to learn the optimal set of stuff than we would be if we got to pick all our own classes, which it totally might, it's hundreds of years old and a school."

"Or it has its own goals which only sort of have anything to do with us. Most intelligent powerful creations hundreds of years old would."

"Are there other hundreds of year old intelligent powerful creations that haven't turned into mals?"

"I think some enclaves have golems but I don't know how old they get. And unlike the school you can destroy a golem that looks like it's going bad."

"It's kind of impressive, really, that they were sure enough of an enormous intelligent independently-mana-sourcing installation to send their own kids there - well, sure enough or desperate enough, I guess. Though two hundred years ago there were meaningful alternatives that worked well enough, it wasn't like now."

"I'm less surprised that they trusted it and more that it worked out. Enough people still make mals to this day, trusting that it'll turn out fine. Now that we're talking about it I'm really curious why the school turned out - not fine, but with different problems."

"...maybe other places have tried things like this but when they turned out student-eating monstrosities they decided not to advertise internationally. Maybe maw-mouths are just very confused schools and that's why they like this place so much."

That gets a chuckle, if a slightly grim one.

"I don't know but when you put it that way I'm glad this place worked as well as it did, broken cleansing and all."

One of the other Bostonians, the one Marcy introduced as Kevin when they all sat down, pipes up. "Yeah, it's impressive! It probably helps that there were dozens of people working on it; most created mals are made by one or a few people without a lot of other options."

"You think it - balances out? If it has lots of peoples' input on intent then maybe it can correct for weird directions it's getting tugged in? I would've naively expected it to work the other way around, that things - naturally want to stop doing what they're told, and the wider the range of inputs they've got the more ways they have to stop doing what they're told."

"Maybe it's just - they've been taking better care of the school? It's never actually been mana-starved, has it? Constructs usually go mal when they get hungry and their usual food source isn't available."

"So we're back to the importance of making sure we feed it our homework."

"In some ways, that's even more motivating than 'otherwise it'll eat you'. And also explains why the school doesn't care if you cheat."

"... Does it? I can see why it doesn't care if you get someone else to do the work for you, but it can't be happy about copying an essay instead of doing the work to write your own."

"I know you have to copy it into your own handwriting; maybe the physically writing it down is enough? If it was important not to do that someone would have told us not to."

"It might not be able to tell? Some kids find writing essays really easy, maybe it has no idea whether you find the essay easy because you're pretty much just copying it or whether you find it easy because the subject matter is easy for you."

"Ugh, does that mean if we all took our homework more seriously the school would be better at keeping mals out?"

The thing that jumps immediately to Annisa's mind which she would not say aloud under any circumstances is that everyone knows the Sinosphere kids work harder than the Anglosphere kids, and are selected by a test to get a slot in the first place, and are pulling more than their share of keeping the school functional. Aside from not saying this because it'd be incredibly unstrategic it also seems false of Marcy, though, who seems to have every intention of working relentlessly to turn her massive advantage into a sure thing.

"That seems like a really important thing to know but I don't know how we'd find out unless we got a whole bunch of people to go really hard on homework for a term and made an attempt at systematically counting mals, and we couldn't possibly ask that of people without a lot more to go on than a nice-sounding theory." She's not even allowed to go for valedictorian, herself; her parents made it very clear that going for valedictorian is only the optimal strategy if you need it to get a graduation alliance.

Maybe there is a way to say her clever idea without offending Marcy. "In some parts of the world everyone gets in and in some you have to test in. If adults wanted to check if it mattered they could vary how many slots get assigned in each way - probably for a decade at a time, telling people way in advance so they can time their kids - and see which way produces student populations with more survivors, which is probably something of a proxy for how bad the mals are and how resourced the school is."

Ways to test the theory don't seem that important to Malak because even if confirmed there's nothing to be done about it.

"Even if somehow someone did prove it, nobody who's cheating on their math homework is going to decide to stop because doing it would give the school marginally more mana to protect other kids with."

"I'm not sure that would be a good test? Making people test in probably gets you individually stronger freshman but they'll be used to competing against each other instead of being a team, so that's two other things that could affect survival rate apart from whether directly doing homework helps. It's probably worth trying anyway, just as a direct experiment in what gets you more survivors, because that's what you want even if you don't know why. And separately I think there are people who would put more effort into their homework than they do now if they really believed it would help the school keep them safe."

Malak noticed the natural experiment that Annisa was talking about. She feels a twinge of annoyance at it, but does her best to suppress it because there's no point in being annoyed at how the world is and if third-world enclaves and independents want their place at the table, well, they'll just have to get strong enough to take it.

It does in fact suck that they can't just let everyone in, but it seems stupid to say that when she has neither a plan to fix it nor the resources to even try to come up with one.

It makes perfect sense that people try to protect their own kids and not random strangers; you'd have to be an idiot to expect them to do otherwise. And even if you were a bizarre psychological alien who for some reason wanted to maximize survival, well, Americans are richer, so their children are more likely to survive, so it makes sense to let more of them in than weak groups from poor places. ...is there a way to say that which won't offend Marcy. 

"Places that let everyone in wouldn't stop that, nor should they, but places that do tests might do something else, if the tests weren't measuring the right thing. You could just auction all the spots, if it turns out parental investment matters more than actual quality as a student. Or ...sell points on the test, at some price, if you figured out how much parental investment counts for how much homework ability."

"Well, that's only England, right? I - kind of think England should stop, or - everyone else should stop them. Of course, if all those spots go to New York instead that's not really any better."

Raleigh spends a minute looking around the cafeteria. He doesn't see Bella but there's Marcy, unsurprisingly sitting at the Boston table. Raleigh heads that way, trying to gauge if they have any extra table space. Boston is generally on good terms with Sacramento, though Larisa did let slip that right now Sacramento back-owes them quite a lot of favours. As one of the people who may end up expected to pay back said favours, this is pretty relevant to Raleigh. 

(Raleigh suspects that his father would be Displeased by - something - about that entire situation, but he's not sure what, and personally it's not like he minds helping other people out.) 

He tries to catch Marcy's eye and wave to her. 

"I think America's not usually tight on spots, unless you've managed to offend all the enclaves somehow? I looked this up when I was deciding where to emigrate" if I grow up "and it looked like mostly all the qualified kids were negotiating who they'd carry for." 

Well, the table's pretty crowded, it looks like, but also Marcy is talking to some other freshmen he hasn't met yet! 

"Hey, Marcy," Raleigh says, without trying to sit down. "Did you get a decent schedule?" He nods to the other two girls as well. "I'm Raleigh. Sacramento enclave." 

Marcy definitely has time for Sacramento, especially since she heard last night that their upperclassmen are in semi-formal talks with Boston's upperclassmen. "Hi Raleigh! I did, yeah, we're all in Tuesday morning shop. How's yours?"

“Pretty good, all things considered! I managed to swap Algebra II for Algebra I, and then it gave me a class on medieval debate poetry, whatever the hell that is, instead of my extra language lab slots. I think I’ve got lab Tuesday mornings, slot before lunch, and shop on Wednesdays. And then a ton of history, but Shannon says she’s really solid on that so I bet I can trade something for homework help if I need to.”

"Yeah, I'm starting German and possibly also Akkadian and that will either be super awesome or eat my entire semester or both. I'm glad your and Shannon's situations align nicely."

This looks like a scoot over and try to fit the Sacramento enclaver in situation? Annisa can scoot.

Randi smiles and sits down. “Yeah! And Shannon’s really great, she’s so smart…” His expression is a little dreamy. “I hope we have some classes together, haven’t had a chance to sync up after homeroom…”

He stops. Narrows his eyes. Why is Landon headed this way and why does he look so stressed - oh no, is Raleigh somehow in trouble aaaaaaaah what could he possibly have screwed up so badly before classes have even started….

Malak was a little slow on her feet noticing that but, yes, she too can scoot. She will do so in a way that puts some Sacramento space in between her and Annisa and across from Marcy.

Landon marches up to the table, looking very tense and serious. 

He exchanges nods with the Boston upperclassmen, then crosses over to Annisa’s side of the table, his eyes brushing past Raleigh with momentary confusion. 

“Landon, Sacramento,” he says. “Heard you knew something about a freshman enclaver who’d been planning to walk into the void deliberately?”

Marcy notices the scooting and shoots Annisa and Malak an appreciative smile. She's about to tell Raleigh about their speculations about homework effort going into the school wards but WTF someone was planning to what?

Her face goes still for a fraction of a second before she realizes that this is one of those situations where someone who doesn't know anything is supposed to react.

"Who did what - sorry, that's not my business."

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhaahahahahahhah it's not fair it's not - and she has the stuff in her backpack, she can't deny it, she can only -

"Chantal. Toronto, I think? She said, uh -" innocentinnocentinnocentinnocent - "she had some kind of fight with Edmund Pevensie from London about it, and I asked her about it, and she said, uh, that he'd tried to - talk her out of it - and she didn't want that - so I just said, uh, that I'd heard it didn't work, just turned you back funny, and she said we'd see, and I could - check - in the morning - if it'd worked -" It sounds to her like she's lying and she isn't even lying.

Landon looks so unhappy, though it’s not particularly aimed at Annisa.

”And?” he says quietly. 

Landon is clearly too distressed to pay attention to subtle facial expressions, but Raleigh isn’t. Annisa…isn’t lying, necessarily, but he strongly suspects she knows more than she’s saying. 

Also, huh, why is Landon so stressed about this in particular -?

Marcy is failing to track facial expressions because she is so confused. If someone was going to do that why would they come here?

"Her door was open, no one was there. I - still figured it was likelier she'd gotten turned, and wandered off - and I was worried someone'd think I'd, uh, encouraged her, or something, and I was already late for homeroom, so I went to class. Have you - asked Toronto -"

"Did she say anything about why she wanted to do it? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense."

“Hadn’t known it was Toronto,” Landon answers Annisa, “just - some indie freshman showed up at our table and she’s heard a rumour.”

He squares his shoulders. Exchanges a deeply worried look with the seniors’ end of the table. “Guess I’d better go ask around there, maybe someone saw her. Shit - this is exactly what we don’t need the first week of term…” 

And he marches off again. 

Malak is just going to sit here looking upset and not say anything. Sorry Annisa, I know you'd do the same for me.

Raleigh is so incredibly confused! He picks at his eggs and exchanges awkward looks with his new yearmate friends. 

“I don’t get why - it’s not like we’re close with Toronto or anything….”

The Boston upperclassmen are exchanging significant looks. One of them mutters something too low to be made out but which is probably "Fuck." Another one says something in Latvian.

She was worried the enclavers would all band together if they suspected it was foul play and she is NOT LESS WORRIED ABOUT THAT NOW.

"He was upset before he even knew it was Toronto," Annisa notes, numbly, because why Sacramento cares is a safer topic than what Annisa knew and on precisely what timeline she knew it. 

Marcy feels like she has puzzle pieces she ought to be able to put together but she's too confused. "It doesn't add up. Why did she come in the first place? What did she want?"

Because Toronto has too many fucking slots, that's why she came here instead of someone who was planning to make it more than one day.

"It's... a pretty bad way to go I'd imagine. Could be why he was so upset."

"Why?" seems like half a step from 'it wasn't suicide' and it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair stop having that thought process it's a dead girl's thought process and Annisa needs all of the North American enclavers to not conclude she's suspicious, that'd be enough, if they don't think they have enough to act on but they think she's suspicious she's dead - 

"She didn't mention but - maybe she was expecting an older sibling or something, or an older friend, who was already dead -"

Sulking about how no one is explaining anything to him is not going to be a good look. 

“Maybe she had a really bad time during orientation, somehow?” But there were barely any mals, and she can’t possibly have known the Shanghai freshman who apparently died before even making it to the cafeteria. “I dunno, Annisa’s idea makes sense…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I just don’t get why Landon was in such a hurry to chase down a weird rumor! He would’ve known it wasn’t anyone from an enclave we’re close with, or he’d’ve found out before the rumor mill.”

Because, fucking obviously, he thinks someone murdered an enclaver and all the enclaves have an interest in deterring that.

Annisa does her best confused face.

Toronto should have figured out she was fragile and done something about it, selling her slot would be terrible for their morale but this has to be even worse. She's not supposed to say that, it sounds horrible and she knows that, but she can't not think it. 

Marcy's not saying anything probably because Marcy's pretty bright and is piecing together that the obvious conclusion from 'that doesn't make sense' is 'that isn't what happened'.

Annisa's thoughts are distracted chasing irrelevant questions like 'who other than Malak knew I was involved at all?' and 'how do they execute people in the Scholomance' and 'can Malak maybe make our backpacks really uninteresting -" no, wait, that's a relevant question  - she can try to catch Malak's eye -

The only mystery here is why Shanghai and Toronto are sending such absolutely pathetic students that despite the best preparation possible show up and die before their first class. In Shanghai's case that's not even a real mystery, they've got slots to spare for shanghai enclavers.

Malak notices Annisa trying to catch her eye but gives no sign that she did because there is nothing she can do here but try to look innocent herself, (Sorry Annisa, you'd do the same for me)

Marcy gets up and walks over to the upperclassmen and and they have a brief conversation in very quiet Greek.

[Anything you can share about what's going on?]

[I don't know what happened or why but I know Sacramento doesn't need any more hits to morale right now. Keep it under your hat.]

[Roger wilco.] Because of Sadness McDeathwish what was his real name, Vanya, right.

Then she comes and sits back down in her own seat, less confused but not about the main question of what in the shit Toronto was thinking. 

(Annisa obviously doesn't expect Malak to do her a favor but the backpacks incriminate the both of them, Malak must just not be thinking of it. Oh well, if Malak is aware Annisa wants something and isn't thinking of it repeating the gesture won't change anything. She stops it.)

That sounded Greek and Malak is desperately wishing she had hearing good enough to actually parse it.

Raleigh tries to catch Marcy’s eye and communicate by eyebrows and telepathy that he has no freaking idea why this is such a big deal or what explains the Boston upperclassmen’s mutters and he would really appreciate if SOMEONE would ever keep him in the loop.

Annisa is grabbed by the sudden suicidal impulse to say to Raleigh "you blonde American moron, they think she was murdered and they're trying to coordinate on responding". She doesn't do it.

Several tables away, Landon has a brief conversation with the Toronto seniors, then leaves and quick-marches back to the Sacramento table, where he appears to be having a quick conference with Larisa.

Annisa has no further snarky commentary because she's just pure internal screaming.

Marcy is fighting with her entire mind not to ask what Toronto was thinking out loud and especially not to walk over to Toronto and ask them. She will not do that. She will also not tell Raleigh what's going on even though it's extremely his business because when a fellow Bostonian tells you something is a secret it is a secret. She will sit in her seat and eat her breakfast and wait for someone to tell her what Landon said Toronto said. And give Raleigh one (1) sympathetic glance about it.

Malak is trying to figure out if it is more suspicious to mention that she also talked to Chantal yesterday or to risk having it come out later. Probably the ship has sailed as far as mentioning it early enough to not be suspiciously hiding things goes.

The one part of Annisa's mind that's still inexplicably online is the one contemplating how you execute people in the Scholomance. The appropriate thing for this occasion would probably be to say 'oh, you claim she walked into the void on her own? well, why don't you do that, and if it works then we'll know you were innocent, actually'. 

After a few minutes, Larisa strides over with Landon on her heels, looking intensely frustrated. 

Landon mostly looks incredibly incredibly tired. “Talked to Toronto. They’re…basically confirming it, the girl handed off all her enclave-shared supplies yesterday. And no one’s seen her. I don’t know why no one did anything, but.” Shrug. 

Marcy runs out of willpower. "Were they surprised?"

This is... a trap, right? - except Toronto would confirm it, if she returned her power sharer and other shared stuff -

Confused. Confused is a fine way to look right now.

Annisa's brain is not working well enough to tell if it has reason to stop the internal screaming.

“Dunno how much they were putting up a front, but - they didn’t exactly seem shocked, no.”

People are saying words. The words have implications for Annisa so she needs to concentrate on them but she can't. 

Well, eventually either people will kill her or they won't? And if they don't she'll - do the thing she was meaning to do - what was that - ....go....to....class??

"If they knew, why would - "

"Was she the Dominus' kid or something?"

The enclavers seem as confused as she is on this point so it's probably safe to mention???

Oh thank goodness someone else said it first. "I know, right, it just seems insane of them."

Annisa... still seems to be panicking? She may not have put together that it's safe now if she hasn't had much practice thinking under stress.

"Annisa? Did she say anything when you talked to her that might explain why Toronto sent her if they knew she was planning something like this?"

Why would Malak TALK to her, does she look like someone who can successfully turn mouth-sounds into implications? - hopefully she does! She didn't successfully turn the mouth-sounds into implications, though, and has no idea what exactly Malak said. Time to bluff. "Has anyone asked Edmund Pevensie? He talked to her for a while." 

"I saw him at orientation yesterday but I think that was before he talked to her."

She caught some of those words. "There was also another Londoner who, uh, dragged Edmund off when he seemed to be getting upset - I don't know his name, though -"

"Well someone could go track them down maybe? But I guess if she didn't tell you she probably didn't tell him either? Obviously Toronto knows what Toronto was thinking bringing a suicidal person in but I don't know if they'd have told anyone else." is she getting through or is Annisa still in shock? There are only so many times she squeeze "Toronto knows she was suicidal" into a conversation before it gets weird and noticeable.

Landon and Larisa exchange looks.

He sighs again. “Guess I’d better go check if London, er, needs anything. You’ll figure out your schedule.”

Malak seems to think she's being helpful so Annisa will just roll with it. "...and probably 'why did you let her come' is, uh, a touchy subject right now, for Toronto."

"Maybe they didn't know until she gave them back all her stuff, but - they still should have done something, right?"

Is that the story we're going with, that she gave Toronto back all her stuff. You'd think that would - fall apart once Toronto complains that, in fact, her stuff is missing - well, the mana storage and power-sharer weren't in there - "...I mean, what can you do. Tie her to her bed?"

"Maybe they thought they had talked her out of it but she turned out to be lying."

" - OK, that's fair, maybe they couldn't figure anything out... drug her and put her to bed and get her in the morning after curfew? But that's just deferring the problem one day."

Larisa shakes her head with a brief eye-roll, and switches to Latin to address the seniors. She keeps her voice low but not quite so low that the freshman can’t pick it up. 

[I need help getting my homework and shop assignment covered this week. Seems I’m back on duty keeping mals off my little brother all night while I make sure he doesn’t fucking walk into the void too.] She ducks her head. [Landon says no more than a week, so, hopefully…]

Marcy has good hearing and solid Latin knowledge and is eavesdropping before she made a conscious decision about it. She tries to keep the shock off her face for the second time in half an hour. All night?!

she's on duty doing what? Malak must have just misheard, Latin's not her best language.

Annisa doesn't speak Latin at all and is very focused on not personally incriminating herself, which seems to be going - well, somehow? But now there's new gossip. And she needs to know what it is without admitting she doesn't know what it is.

"Uh," she says, "have I been - misinformed about a bunch of things about how the Scholomance works? Like - it's possible, my brothers didn't make it out and my parents were nearly forty years ago -"

It makes sense, that if they have to guard him it has to be 24/7, but--Boston tells its kids, any one is to die for any two. You treat your life as exactly as valuable as each squadmate's life, you don't throw good life after bad. But she said back on duty, so she's done it before--conclusion: Larisa is serious business and for some reason rational or otherwise they are extremely committed to keeping Vanya alive.

"Sorry, what do you think you were misinformed about?" She was definitely distracted by wondering what Toronto was thinking and not by eavesdropping on the next table.

Raleigh isn’t fluent enough in Latin to actually follow a conversation in real time; he catches a little bit but is mostly so confused. 

He gives Annisa a sympathetic look but does not, in fact, have any answers for her.

"Well, for one thing, that you can't walk into the void. And secondly -" Glance over at the other table. 

Oh dear. Well she shouldn't blame Larisa for not talking quietly enough, she must be mega freaked out coming and going right now. Still, better not admit to eavesdropping. "Yeah, I heard if you walk into the void you come back out with brain damage. Maybe she--set up some mechanism to shove herself?"

Larisa is explaining her schedule trying to find out who shares her classes, and then, still in Latin, asks if Boston could spare any help with sophomore math homework and daytime babysitting, [since I won’t be good for much this week] she adds with a ceilingward glower. 

"Oh, okay, that's what I was told too. Yeah, maybe." Maybe it's easier with a void floor but volunteering that would mean reminding people Annisa's been to her room.

One of Boston's sophomores makes a wiggly hand gesture and says (in Latin) that he's really overloaded this term but maybe they could ask the freshmen, he heard Marcy is doing the fast math track and anyway some of them might be able to do their homework while they babysit. He catches Marcy's eye and gestures for her to come down this end of the table again.

"Hello. Larisa, right? Marcy."

"OK, so I did hear what I thought I heard? Because I wasn't paying attention so I thought I must have heard wrong because what I thought I heard was completely insane"

She hisses this significantly more quietly than the Sacramento girl, because she's not trying to offend the senior? With a battle-axe?

“Uh, sorry, what did she say?” Raleigh is looking very sheepish at the clear indication of his inferior language skill.

"uh - I think she said she was going to spend the night in her brother's room protecting him from mals. And, uh. Himself."

“She’s going to what oh my god isn’t that insanely dangerous— I mean, it’s Larisa, but still!”

At which point the rest of the implications there catch up with him and whack him in the face. 

“So they…think…he’d do the same as the Toronto girl… What the fucking hell happened to him, anyway, nobody’s telling me anything…”

“Marcy,” Larisa acknowledges, with a curt nod. “Heard you might be up for sophomore-level math homework? What would you want in exchange for sitting with one of our sophomores during the work period after lunch and making sure his homework gets done?”

"I might be about to be in search of Akkadian language tutoring? Or a useful spell, or shop supplies, shop supplies are always good. What math is he in? I'm taking Algebra 2 this term."

Ha, creating common knowledge they were eavesdropping worked even though Annisa wasn't eavesdropping. And Sacramento doesn't care about Toronto, this just created more work for them because they're...also babysitting a suicide? She feels almost back to normal. 

“We can get you shop supplies. I have a bunch stashed in my room, you could poke around? …I think he’s in advanced geometry and intro calculus.” Larisa rubs a hand over her face. “I think Justin might have Akkadian, I can ask if he’s up for language tutoring.”

Oh no, she doesn't know calculus--she's not going to let that stop her because she doesn't let things stop her. She's going to need to learn it eventually anyway; artificers usually do. "I'm going to need to see his math textbooks in addition to the Akkadian tutoring; I had a little geometry but no calculus."

She should probably offer to find someone else but she’s so tired. “Thanks so much. Come find us at lunch?”

"I will." Sacramento is either insane or amazing and based on Boston's upperclassmen's reaction and Larisa's accomplishments she's leaning towards the latter. So she's going to be amazing too. 

Raleigh watches Marcy talking to Larisa. 

He glances over at Annisa and Malak. “I really want to know what the hell happened to Vanya,” he says grumpily. “He wasn’t, um, like…this. Before.”

"He's your, uh, kid who might copy Chantal?" Is that insensitive. 

"Well I've never heard of him before just now."

Why is he asking them about it?

Raleigh is aware he’s being awkward but no one ELSE is talking to him and he’s very tired of it.

”Uh, yeah, that,” he says to Annisa’s question. “Larisa keeps promising to fill me in and then…not doing that.”

Annisa kind of wants to avoid all attention from enclaves until she's a junior and can sell them impressive shit, at this point. "I'm sorry," she says to Raleigh.

"Could it've been a psychic mal? Probably he'll recover?" They wouldn't be trying to stop him from killing himself tonight if he wasn't going to get better, unless the rest of the enclave is planning to watch him 24/7 for the next three years.

"Does seem like they sort of owe you an explanation, though, if they're racking up a huge debt of favors to keep him from walking into the void." And burning a stunning amount of mana, if they're fighting mals for breaking curfew every single night. 

“…Could’ve been a psychic mal, I guess? And, yeah, it sounds like he’s already been getting better, just - I guess learning about the Toronto girl upset him a lot?”

Raleigh drags a hand through his hair. “Honestly I’m pretty nervous about, uh, knowing that something dangerous happened but not what? So, uh, if I do get an explanation, you guys want to hear it as well? “ 

"As long as you won't get in trouble for sharing it."

She does not mind if Raleigh gets in trouble with his crazy suicide-pact enclavemates over sharing it but she doesn't want anyone thinking she's trying to pry into Sacramento's private business. (Which she is)

What is his play, here?

Annisa should stop thinking about peoples' motives while she has this much adrenaline in her veins, it points all her thoughts at 'wants to kill you, personally'. Except Malak, who makes perfect sense as a person.

Malak has already given up on trying to understand what any enclaver is thinking for the rest of the day. It has been a day. Breakfast isn't even over yet and it has already been such a day.

Annisa wants to go lock herself in her room with Malak and gossip for five hours while they build mana but instead she has to do an ENTIRE DAY OF CLASSES. She is going to need to toughen up. She already knew that but she's going to need to toughen up more than she knew. 

“….Okay, I’m going to try to get an explanation out of her. …Catch you at lunch?” Probably the bell for start of class will be ringing any minute now.

WHY "Yeah, sounds good!"

"See you at lunch!"

Malak cannot wait for breakfast to be over. Is Annisa in Magical Conflicts with her? She can't remember but she desperately needs some time far away from any enclavers and their insane enclaver problems and she needs to talk to Annisa about - all of this. Can't talk in mal studies, it's too crowded and the presentation is important. Can't wait 'till lunch because APPARENTLY there is more insane enclaver social drama scheduled for lunch.

Annisa is feeling the exact same way! "I have English composition after mal studies," she says quietly to Malak. "You?"

"History of magical conflicts, double-length. So. Work period?" She does not look happy about how work period is after lunch.

That's terrible because it means they're going to have to sit through more sadistic torture from the enclavers before they can discuss what the fuck is going on. But at least they're on the same page about this. It's surprisingly heartening that they're on the same page about this. "Yeah, sounds good."

She really did not expect to be at all tempted to skip her second ever class in the scholomance but she's kind of tempted.

"We've still got ten minutes before mal studies, want to run to the bathroom?" 

"Yeah, good idea."

Ten minutes isn't enough time for a proper debrief but they'll at least be able to cling to each other and be extremely confused together and she can explain what she was going for with the backpacks so Malak doesn't think she's an idiot who just wanted help, and she can figure out something graceful to say about freezing up and forgetting how to process words, which was really bad, she needs to never do that again, and she can share the two (2) facts she knows about Raleigh, Sacramento, which are that Shannon her next door neighbor carried in his stuff and that he's into her, not that this makes him much less confusing.

Marcy is aware of the ambient total bonkersness of the situation but the main thing she needs to do about it is pull the rest of her squad into a secluded corner and explain that she can't do work period with them unless they want to do it wherever she and Vanya end up and that she will pay them for the inconvenience if it ends up being a significant one. And then they speculate for a while about whether Sacramento is making the correct calculation about how likely their efforts are to save Vanya versus kill someone else along with him, which is much better than trying to speculate with only one brain while also carrying on a conversation about something slightly different. They conclude that empirically nobody has died protecting him yet, and if they pull that off long enough to get him out and also pay back Boston for their help it will be net awesome for the rep of everyone involved in the long run. Well, except Vanya, who must be horrendously ashamed of himself about all of this if he's capable of shame in his current state, but that's a non-actionable dead end because they don't know enough about his situation to say things to him that will be helpful in expectation. Anyway, maybe he has an affinity for something awesome and will pull himself together and sail all his allies out of the graduation hall on wings of lightning or whatever. It would certainly explain some things.

That's the bell, and they all need to run off to Mal Stud and grab a block of good seats.