"- up in the library probably? It's their work period. New York's got a spot right in the middle of the reading room, three couches and two coffee tables and a teapot, can't miss it."

.....Marian has MANY concerns with this! One of them being that she has literally no idea how to find the library from here. 

"...Uh. Can I - trade a favor right now for one of you to walk with me? - I don't know what sorts of things you need, but the void is pretty happy to give me antidepressants basically whenever, and it seems like I can get ADHD drugs like Adderall if you pass an ADHD screening test first? And I have, uh, a bag of saline and a lot of gauze and some tape measures that I don't think are evil yet." 

"None of us have ADHD!... I guess Zeke might have ADHD? I'm allowed to take Adderall for midterms and finals and twice a semester just to stay up later but if I feel the need for it more than that I'm supposed to hire out more homework, my dad thinks that it's not actually good for teenagers to take stimulants too much. If you get the tea and snacks we'll absolutely trade you for the tea and snacks."

"....I mean, it's probably not good for your brain development, but neither is being murdered by homework or evil magic death monsters! So, uh, it - seems like the cost-benefit analysis there is kinda different. Anyway I don't know how big a thing you'd need to trade for walking me to the library. I have some mild pain meds," she eventually figured out that 'paracetamol' is the same thing as 'acetaminophen', "and a lot of alcohol swabs?" 

“I definitely have way more ADHD than, like, most people, I dunno if I’d pass a screening thingy? I could maybe help with bodyguarding stuff in return for a screening thingy but I shouldn’t, like, do it by myself or whatever - do you wanna help with bodyguarding stuff,” he asks Orion.

"Like right now? Sure, I don't think anything's down there," he says, gesturing at the drain.

"Uh, sure, I'm happy to do the screening with you after." Mostly Marian just wants a chance to make her case in front of someone who actually has any authority here to make decisions. At that point, she'll at least know whether this is an at-all-viable path for her. 

"We can all go to the library now, I guess." She stands up and tucks her spice-shakers back into her bookbag.

Marian follows her. She's quiet, mostly focused on trying to psych herself up for giving an Inspiring Speech to the NY seniors about her potential value to the school. 

The New York juniors and sophomores are lounging in their study area, working and speaking to each other quietly. The teapot is whistling. 

(Zeke stuffs the rest of his food into his face in about ten seconds flat and then follows along! He’s going to get a bunch of adderall or whatever and he’s not going to have to worry about draining the general supply and then he’s going to get to learn even more LANGUAGES and also do other stuff probably.)

"Where's Annaka, the school nurse has a question."

        "She's busy."

"It's the first day of classes! And she has a morning gym slot, she told me."

        "She's busy, Julia. What's the question?"

And then another girl, who looks like Julia but infinitely more dangerous and slightly less exquisitely makeup-ed, stomps through the reading room and says something quietly to a junior, who runs off. 

"There you are! This is Marian, she had a question and I told her she could ask you."

"Sure, what can I help you with?" says Annaka very very briskly.

......Wow. That is the facial expression and body language of someone who has just been interrupted with SOMETHING ELSE in the middle of a shift that involved her patient coding ten minutes ago and her other patient's horrible granddaughter yelling at her on the phone for half an hour. Metaphorically speaking. 

"...Sorry if now's not a good time," Marian says. "I - just wanted to make the case that it's worth New York, uh, investing some resources in helping me live longer so I can save more of your kids and the other kids they might ally with later. I was an intensive care nurse - I know my shit - but I can't do magic so I need some help here." 

"We've got the extra buzzers that warn Orion -"

"...and that someone could use to lure him," Annaka says flatly. "Not that. Happy to have someone - ward her room, make her a fighty construct, whatever. Ask Mark."

“I have an enchanted knife,” Marian offers. Gets it out to show them. “And one of the Chinese students is doing wards for me in exchange for apprenticing in medicine. But I just figured I should do all the precautions I can. Um, and in particular I might want to sometimes leave the infirmary to go check on students? And I was wondering if Orion could escort me, sometimes, it wouldn’t take long…”

"I have no objections to that," Annaka says briskly. 

"We were thinking about running group therapy sessions!" Julia says cheerfully. "And seeing if we can convince the school that snacks and tea for therapy are medically necessary."

"Don't say anything about any New Yorkers in group therapy," says Annaka immediately. 

"I'm not an idiot!"

....Shit. She's missing a LOT of context here.

And, on the one hand, obviously Marian is in a position to give advice to this poor kid - she can't be more than seventeen, eighteen, and she's running around frantically, responsible for people's lives with even higher stakes than Marian herself has dealt with - 

- but on the other hand, it's just as obvious that the New York kid - Annaka? - has literally no reason to think that Marian is even slightly competent or useful to her. After all, Marian isn't a wizard. She didn't know magic existed until yesterday. She's just a random, helpless, kidnapped mundane human, who - from Annaka's perspective, and Marian has to admit it's a very plausible perspective - is almost certainly going to die no matter what happens. 

"Thank you," she says to Annaka, meeting her eyes levelly. "I really appreciate that.

And she catches Julia's eye, and lowers her voice. "...Clearly something's going on here that's above my head, so I - think I should just make a list of services we could exchange, and you can show it to her later when it's a better time?" 

"Yeah, I can do that - look, the one bright side of all the seniors running around for some stupid reason is that we can get a couch -"

         "Good luck, stay safe, I'll look forward to hearing more later," says Annaka in one breath, and leaves.