"And also they're in prison! And can't hurt anyone else! Which seems like an important difference!"

"Mmm." Marian is not going to argue this point any longer. She still feels really bad for traumatized murder kid, but - Julia has a point, it's kind of absurd to imagine him in a group therapy session with scented candles and art, and if she somehow did convince him, he would just be disruptive. 

"- Anyway, if we're going to get therapeutic supplies from the void, we should - probably convince it we know what we're doing? So I think I'll see if I can get it to give me some workbooks on doing group therapy?" 

"My rug is Buddhist, so ideally it'd be Buddhist group therapy, like with meditation and stuff."

"Oh yeah, meditation, that's something we could do! I bet I can get the void to give me a book on it. ...Uh, what does it mean, that your rug is Buddhist?" 

"Like, the pattern is Buddhist and it likes it when I do yoga on it and I decorated the rest of my room to go with it, with Buddhist inscriptions a Chinese kid did."

Marian...feels like that cannot possibly be how things work. Then again, apparently magic is a thing and she would have said yesterday that that couldn't possibly be how anything worked, so clearly her qualifications here are dubious. 

"Uh, right. We can probably do yoga too, although it might not work that well if the room is really packed." 

"We could do yoga in the gym maybe! Not as therapy, just as group exercise."

"Is the gym, uh, safe?" 

"Well, no? But it's the place that has enough space for group exercise and we can drag Orion along."

"Uh, sorry, who's Orion?" 

She points at the boy sitting atop the drain. "That's Orion! He can handle mals."

"Are we allowed in the gym outside Field Day this year? Somebody told me I wasn't allowed in the gym freshman year."

Someone probably was worried he'd join the seniors on gym runs just for fun. He probably would. "Freshmen are allowed in the gym! It's usually too dangerous, but I thought maybe you could look out for us!"

"Yeah, sure!"

"Maybe we can do yoga on, like, Sundays? I feel like Sundays are a good day for yoga because they're supposed to be a day of rest."

"Oh! That's, uh, really good to know. ...Uh, hey. Orion?" She waves at the kid. "Can I ask you something?"

"Hm?"

"- Sorry, I don't know if you heard when I introduced myself. I'm Marian, the school nurse. I'm not magical, apparently they just kidnap us. Anyway, I - really want to not die - and I'm trying to be smart about it? So I was wondering if there might be anything I could trade with you, or the rest of New York - I can get drugs and medical books from the void and maybe other things if I can make a case that they're medically necessary - and I would really like it if you could, uh, be my...bodyguard...if I want to go anywhere...?" 

Marian isn't sure she's ever been this self-conscious in her entire life! But - it's a good idea. If she wants to survive longer than a month, it's going to require strategy. 

"Uh - Julia do we have extra buzzer things -"

Awkward! "I think we have, uh, two. For graduation alliances."

"Well that's years off, right, she could have one now?"

Marian has no idea what they're talking about! But it sure sounds like it might be important! 

"- I know I won't be any good for your, uh, team," that's not the word but she's forgotten the right word, "at graduation. Since I'm not magic. But I am a fully trained and qualified ICU nurse - I've saved patients with gunshot wounds and severe sepsis from other injuries - and I'm the only person here over twenty-one, plus, uh, I didn't have to spend most of my early teens frantically learning survival skills and combat magic instead of anything else? So I bet I know a lot of science and bio and chemistry stuff that no one else here does. I've already got one of the Chinese students doing a medical apprenticeship with me...." 

Marian runs out of breath and a second later runs out of bravado and– shit did she just say all of that out loud, aaaaaaaaaah they're going to think she's - what - she doesn't even know, actually - 

She wants to survive as long as she can and she wants to save as many people as she can until then and that's what's important here. 

"- Anyway. I think I can save a lot of kids who do have magic, and - maybe make the difference, for you guys, on having enough allies at graduation that you all make it out alive? But if you want me to - provide all the value I can here - then I need help with the surviving part. Because I've got a magic knife but I can't learn spells. I just wanted to say that." 

.....and now she can quietly die of humiliation about how she actually said all of that out loud. 

SOOO awkward. "You can ask the seniors?"

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo awkward. 

"- I would like to do that. Where are they."