She doesn't think Marcy was like that but if she says any more positive things about Marcy they're going to think she's obsessed. "We should go get a seat in the library," she says instead. "Four's enough we can venture out a bit, on the first day, maybe find a nook that'll be defensible even later."

"I think some enclavers are normally competent and some are coasting on having enclave resources."

"A library spot would be good. I haven't been up there yet."

"Yeah, let's go."

"That's a good idea." And then he forgets all about possibly offending Shanghai since he's just had a very clever thought. "You know what I think the deal with Shanghai is? It's peacocking. It has to be. I don't know anything about the dead kid, but the quiet one, and that breakdown during orientation – it could all be their way of saying, look, we're so strong we can carry this deadweight all the way through to graduation. They're very traditional, right, so it makes a weird kind of sense – it shows that they're magnanimous, that the little people can trust them to look out for their interests. At least that's how a lot of the sino enclavers will parse it, I think, and that's the obvious target audience." 

" - huh. That makes sense. It - doesn't fit with their reputation outside but of course those don't have to line up perfectly..."

"I feel like it would get them indies who find 'we'll forgive your incompetence' an attractive pitch but maybe that's not as bad as it sounds, somehow."

"Well, if you're an indie you don't get that kind of treatment. I think it mostly says, look, if you join us you'll definitely get to meet your grandchildren, we can give you that." 

It feels dangerously close to thinking ahead. She nods. Stands up, grabs her bookbag.

It clicks, then, she thinks. Istanbul hasn't gotten over 1917. Shanghai hasn't gotten over... she doesn't remember the year, but whenever China stopped being an empire and did... communist stuff? And world war stuff?

They probably shouldn't do anything about the baby maleficer, aside from staying away from him, but talking about it is a good intimacy-building exercise. Annisa hasn't forgotten that these kids are not her friends and are probably going to die, but if they don't, you want good working relationships. She makes her way out of the cafeteria and up the stairs to the library, keeping a lookout. 

Julian will bring up the rear, because taking the more exposed position seems likely to build goodwill and it's not a very costly gesture on the second day. 

The library. It's enormous; it stretches out indefinitely off into the distance, with a Void-sky above and thousands of cozy reading spots. Almost all of them claimed, of course - enclaves get the good seats, and then older students - but there might be a little reading nook somewhere that no one has already laid claim to, where a group of freshmen could watch each others' backs and maybe even put up a ward once they have more mana, and do their homework.

Or maybe they'll all get eaten. That does happen to many freshmen who attempt it. 

She looks down the stacks, even though she can't tell by looking which one might be good.

Malak is contemplating whether she could kill the maleficer if she had enough mana. Probably she could, if she really had to? She's not going to unless the situation gets much worse, because walking up to a maleficer unnoticeably and cutting his throat is an extremely stupid plan. But, if, for some reason, he was killing students and the enclaves weren't doing anything about it and so she was in danger from him anyways...

"I say we pick a stack and keep going until we find a carrel or start to get out of sight of the main reading room, in which case we backtrack and repeat. Sound like a plan?" 

"Works for me."

"Sure, let's look for an english stack? I don't know if we have any other languages in common, and I don't want to be walking past a bunch of mandarin scrolls every day if we make this a regular thing."

"Oh, right," she says, and passes on the French one she was about to look down. Here's an English stack. "Try this one?"

She proceeds down the stack. Might as well be up front about this if she's going to be studying with people. "I only have English and Javanese, though we'll see what the school tries to add on top. We learned my affinity early and I'm not quick with languages, so it didn't seem worth trying to load on anymore."

"...huh, not even Latin?" Well played, Annisa, well played.

"Something with artificing or alchemy, then, I suppose?" 

"Figured common knowledge we were eavesdropping would be sufficient to get someone to say it in English," she says to Malak, somewhat pleased with herself, and to Julian, "Weapons."

"Oh." He does his best not to sound jealous. "That's good." 

"Well it worked. This time." She pauses a moment to think over the last day. "...lamb's blood?"

"Indonesia hasn't any religious wizards anymore, they all died out. I did know I'd heard it somewhere."

"The school decided I needed to learn metallurgy, for some reason. You can have a look at my textbook, if that sounds useful. Lots of metal weapons." Which is an idiotic thing to say, now that he's thought about it for two seconds, of course weapons affinity girl knows that many weapons are made of metal.