The alchemist of the trio got lucky, in a somewhat horrifying manner of speaking; the alchemist who should have been a senior this year is dead. So while she's not getting any homework help from him, and all his materials and finished work are being hastily turned into trade goods to maybe entice a good replacement into their alliance, many of his tools, redundant with what another senior alchemist would never have made it this far if they didn't already have, useless as senior-level trade goods, are going to be hers a year sooner than they might have been otherwise. 

She's stewing, quietly, on the cautionary tale of the lab project that killed him, as her compatriots clamor to impress the senior incanter. 

The tactless politician who offended Daria Chernova an hour ago has had it explained to her that sympathy is sometimes an insult here and is now sulking. 

(One would think that being descended from British spies who spent most of their life after the Scholomance assassinating Nazis would imbue one with a certain amount of subtlety, but Madge, at age fourteen, has inherited lots of her family's bravery and absolutely none of their subtlety whatsoever.) 

And the aspiring poet has ... acquired a friend, somehow, on their way here. 

The senior artificer squints suspiciously at the girl. "Sorry, who are you?" 

"This is Liesel!" chirps Hermes, starry-eyed. "She can come along, right? We're friends!" 

... she is very pretty ... 

The incanter rolls his eyes. It's tempting to actually say out loud sure, whatever, she's obviously going to die before New Years' anyway if her best strategy is really 'be pretty,' but honestly, it'll probably be good for the kids to learn that lesson themselves. 

And also they are tiny babies and he kind of wants them to be happy for five minutes before everything sucks. 

So he just shrugs. "Our kids get first dibs but you can stay."  

"Teenage boys! Honestly," mutters Lelina to Madge. 

"Hey, c'mon, it's not her fault if that's her best strategy," Madge murmurs back, shooting a sympathetic look at the back of Liesel's head. 
  

They collect their supplies without further incident - basics, mostly, most of the odds of really interesting stuff has worn off since this morning. 

It takes less effort than the seniors would have guessed to shake off Liesel, who scurries quite respectfully, before settling in for resource handoff and lessons on the power sink. They're only supposed to give instructions on this to anyone outside the enclave if they're desperate, which means Munich's junior artificer also knows where to find the access panel on the Christmas pyramid in their reading room. If she made it out, she'd be promptly catapulted to near the top of the list for who gets cool classified inter-enclave collaboration projects. "So be extra polite to her," the freshmen are duly warned. "Most people won't throw away that kind of trust but you never know, in here." 

This is not a super optimistic start to their Scholomance career but Lelina is beginning to sense that maybe it was dumb of her to be excited. 

(Lysander is sitting in the corner of the room they're having this meeting in, with earplugs, humming to himself and murmuring to his hammer about what a good mana sink he is sure it can grow up to be, it's so big and strong and helpful, maybe he can embed some gems into the handle, etcetera. Being, technically, not an actual member of the enclave until and unless he makes it through graduation alive, he does not at this time get to know the secret enclave facts.)