Marcy happens to overhear this and privately thinks that's a very stupid way of going about things. If someone is admitting they wronged you you can use that cooperation to demand some compensation that actually benefits you. Violence is negative-sum and makes you look impulsive.

"Oh no, that sucks.  Rotten luck."  Has it been long enough- no, clearly it has been long enough, and there will be a book under her chair because that's where books go... ha, it worked.  

Oh good, she's got a book.

"Thanks, Connie."

He's just gonna memorize Chapter 1 while his eyes are still open, that seems good. 

Chapter 1 gives an overview of the observed trends in maleficaria in the last three centuries. Key takeaway: they're a lot worse. 

More specifically, modern maleficaria seem to be significantly harder to kill or avoid, more numerous, more mana-hungry, and less willing to go after mundanes than before the Industrial Revolution. Broadly speaking, this is thought to be a result of the Enlightenment making mundanes less willing to take the seemingly rules-defying creatures of myth and faerie at face value; the Industrial Revolution concentrating disbelievers together in cities; and a complex feedback loop involving mundanes becoming less appealing targets, weaker maleficaria being disbelieved out of existence, and stronger maleficaria increasingly subsisting on a diet of wizards and lesser mals.

In later chapters, the textbook promises to compare maleficaria populations and death rates in specific regions of the world and at different points in history. The author admits, in a slightly unprofessional tone of wry frustration, that by dint of changing belief patterns, such analysis can itself change the population dynamics of maleficaria being studied, and is therefore prone to "exponentially compounding complexity." 

"It is nevertheless hoped," concludes the introduction, "that reasonably sound conclusions may still be drawn from the observed changes in patterns of maleficaria activity over the recent centuries. This we shall endeavor to accomplish in subsequent chapters." 

The broader context is interesting and the regional specifics sound like they'll come with lots of excellent spells for making those specifics wish very briefly that they had stayed in their regions. She takes notes in her usual polyglot shorthand.

"I'm going to sound people out for language, spell, or homework trading," Alexius remarks to Connie as class wraps up. "You interested?"

Connie takes notes in small crabbed handwriting, draws some tentative sketchy curves at the part about feedback loops, then takes more notes over top of them to save paper.  

"Sure, definitely," she says to Alexius, folding her notes and tucking them neatly inside her textbook.  "I should avoid new languages this semester, I'm doing Mandarin history for my language credit, but I'm totally down to swap homework."

"I'm good at things that need memory, and a large subset of spells and alchemy. Terrible at artificing though." 

"Oh, huh-" is it rude to say 'convenient for me', probably it is.  "I'm artificing track- forces affinity, it'd be a waste not to.  And I can do senior level math, but instead of an extra shop period like I was hoping for I just got three lit classes."  

"Forces, oooh. Kinda want to do my own math because it'll come in handy, at least the courses I'm in. We could trade artificing homework for lit homework? I spent most of Intro to Shop struggling with the make-and-mend, my affinity actively fights me when I'm working on something that isn't me." 

"Mmmaybe?  I need to find a group to go down to the shop in work periods with before I commit to more than I can handle in class time- I maybe already did that kind of- and freshman shop I'm guessing isn't mostly going to be the sort of thing where composing it takes most of the time and you may as well make two copies.  But assuming I get that sorted out- oh wait, do you have Spanish, they're all three in Spanish."

"I do have Spanish. We can coordinate later once we've had a chance to see our classes in action. I'm room 191A." 

"Oh, I'm like way the other end of the school.  We could meet up at dinner, maybe?  What've you got next, I've got, uh, freshman comp."  She's not sure whether telling boys your room number is a bad idea- probably it's fine, he shared his without thinking- but she is going to stay on the safe side for now.

"I also have freshman comp next, but sure, dinner sounds good." Especially since he hasn't had lunch. "Walk to class together after this one ends?" Safety in numbers and all that. 

"Sure, sounds good."

"Neat. Let me hit up that other group first, need to ask something."

Alexius approaches Marcy near the end of class. "Hey, I heard you mention your enclavemate has a containers affinity? He should talk to Bella Swan from New Orleans. She's going to experiment with ways to poison the mal food chain and I bet she could use some good agglo holders." 

"Ooh, nice tip, thanks." Also that sounds like an interesting project Bella has going. Not immediately obvious how it turns into a graduation strategy, but worth asking about.

"Unrelatedly, I'm sounding people out for trades - language tutoring, homework, spells, especially personal spells, that sort of thing. If any of you are interested we can maybe talk this weekend?" He's not doing a great job of selling it right now, but just thinking is mana-building at this stage of sleep deprivation. He awards himself mental points for remembering to ask at all. 

"I expect I'll know by the weekend what kind of German tutoring I'll want to buy. I can pay in homework."

"I'm planning to pick up German this year myself, but it's not first on the list...well, let me know." She didn't mention spell trades, not sure if that's a rejection or just not-having-something-in-mind. There'll be other chances to offer, he supposes. 

Ghassan doesn't acknowledge Masozi, but nothing more than that; he has an obvious aura, which means associating with him in front of other people is a bad idea. He does hope he can catch up with him at some point in the first week. He's more interested in the class material; so far, all of his classes seem interesting, and this one will likely turn up more useful information than History of Magical Conflicts. There's- a lot here about maleficaria as though they're biological creatures, which doesn't seem like something they can be confident about. It's not an ordinary ecosystem- but no, it mentions belief, too. Interesting. Numbers are good too. Overall, it sounds like it could be useful for understanding how to manage their little local mal problem. If he can get at least one person interested in working with Dubai. He is thankful that the enclave hasn't had time to build a bad reputation yet, no matter how little success they've had at graduating students. It would take years of this rate to scare off potential allies of a similar position. They can't sucker New York or Shanghai, but maybe Kiev, Munich, Zanzibar...