Connie remembers to check the air vents first when she arrives from the library, and oh hey, Wei Wuxian is in this class with her- aaaand so is Marcy Park.  She will... maybe go sit by Bruise Kid instead.

"Well, no, but he's an artificer and I'm not, I get the impression that being an artificer involves a lot of convincing objects that they have traits."

"Ah, yeah, that'd do it." That girl who just walked in looks familiar--oh heck, it's Connie Donovan. What's she supposed to say, "Long time no see?" Oh good, Connie's ignoring her,  what an excellent strategy. She's going to copy it.

He overhears the conversation but does not partake. Zombie cockroaches, that's a new one. And containers, hmm...

He does his best to nod politely at his new seatmate. His smile comes out a little tense. 

"Hi," Connie murmurs, and starts to check the basket under her seat for her textbook- no, she should check it for mals first- well, now she's thought about it too much and now there's no mals and also no textbook.  She looks away from it again.  " 'M Connie.  You?"

"Alexius. Nice to meet you." It's hard for him to muster the effort to be social after this morning, but that just makes it mana-building. He notices the lack of a textbook. "Want to use my book when I'm done with the reading? I'll pick it up fast." Thank you, potion-that-apparently-works-only-on-him.

Masozi, who was sufficiently distracted checking everyone else's desks for mals, now has a textbook! He will open it and start reading. 

"Sure- I'll check again in a bit, though, I don't wanna impose on you the whole class."  She has her mathematical modeling textbook with her but that's too distracting... is that the garbage clothes kid?  Is he sitting with Marcy and Wei Wuxian, or just by them?

"You doing okay, Masozi?" Wei Wuxian asks. "Do you need someone to help you read it?"

"The book is in English. I learned how to read English books in the library in Malawi so I think I'm okay."

Masozi is not the world's fastest reader and he occasionally has to sound out unfamiliar words under his breath but he can make his way. 

"I can read it out loud to you if that would help?"

Masozi can't tell if Wei Wuxian...thinks he's stupid? Or just really wants to read the textbook out loud– oh! Maybe there's subtext here and actually someone else here can't read but Wei Wuxian doesn't want to say that... 

Either way, probably it would be rude to turn him down. "Okay. Thank you." 

He follows Connie's gaze. "Friends of yours?"

Why is Zombie Lord being aggressively patronizing at that kid. Does Alexius sound that patronizing when he tries to help people? He hopes not. 

Wei Wuxian learned to read English recently enough that he's aware of PHONICS and he thinks that this is probably more important for Masozi to be solid on than whatever it is they're supposed to be learning, he forgot. 

Masozi is incredibly delighted to learn pretty much anything, it doesn't matter what! 

"Not exactly?"  Connie murmurs back to Alexius.  "Ran into the Shanghai kid at lunch, we talked math for a while."  Does that sound like she's namedropping? Probably not, it doesn't make sense to call someone by name to someone who doesn't know them.  "D'you have to fight something already?"  She nods toward his chin.

He snorts. "I wish. No, I - " you're going to have to explain this a lot, Alexius, might as well tell it like it is. "I sold some potions that had side effects that testing back home didn't detect. Some... pretty bad." Long sigh. "I refunded everybody, an upperclassman took it personal, thought my atonement needed some... physical component. I can't really blame 'em." 

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."