"...can we talk about this somewhere privately?"

"We can use my room, it's before curfew."

"Does that mean we're going to have sex?"

She laughs bitterly. "No."

"Oh. Okay." He thinks about it. "I should get you candy."

"I'd definitely take it. Now let's get going, curfew is in only a couple hours."

He thinks he should hold her hand on the way to her room.

She lets him.

!!!!!!

The drugs are wearing off but this is still the best thing in the world. It is maybe (he suspects) better than chocolate.

Such a cute little maleficer. 

She opens the door to her room, steps inside, and sits down on the bed.

He closes the door.

"I killed a dude to get here and Tintin because he caught me. --And I'm going to kill the entire Kunming enclave."

She just sighs. "Why, what did they do to you?"

He holds up his left hand, which doesn't have a pinky finger.

"Okay, that's justifiable. But you're going to bring hell down on me if I help or am even vaguely in the vicinity when you do that. I strongly advise against, and if nothing else could you please do it far away from me?"

"But if I kill them some other time there are going to be a bunch of adult wizards who might kill me."

"You say, when there are still plenty of seniors here who might kill you just the same."

For the first time in his life, Xue Yang considers the subject of delayed gratification.

"So you're saying I should wait until I'm stronger... and then kill them later?"

"Exactly. And that way I can maybe actually graduate if you're clever enough."

"I can do that."

"Very good! Here, you can have the rest of the package of Smarties for that." She hands it over.

He devours the Smarties.

"...where do you get the candy from?"

"I got into the scholomance by carrying a bunch of luxuries like candy for Chicago. Then Chicago up and vanished. So I have a bunch left over."

"So the candy's going to run out?"

"Not for a very long while."

He considers delayed gratification for a second time.

"We should... be careful with the candy?" he says questioningly. "So there will be more later?"

She nods. "Very good!"

"And then you can have candy too!"

"I mean, if you want to share. I would rather trade candy for something more useful like spells or enchanted items."

He's confused about this. Why would you want something more than candy?

Employing his new concept of Delayed Gratification, he decides that probably this is so you can get more candy later. 

"In any case, I need to keep studying. Can we continue this back at the library?"

"Yes."

Off to the library! More handholding?

More handholding!

He is going to pick up one of these books and learn how to read. How hard can it be.

She is going to quietly write in her book in Mandarin. 

She writes: 

Lily's Luxury Emporium

- My stalker 

- has admitted 

- they are the cause

- of your missing freshman 

- plus one other

- please help

Next to it she draws her best sketchy rendition of a lily flower. It's not very good.

Marian has been kind of stewing in the back of her mind ALL AFTERNOON about the horribly traumatized illiterate maleficer kid who she gave either ketamine or MDMA (who knows which? she can probably make a guess by asking him about the effects but it's not like she's an expert on either.) 

After dinner, she finally gets up the courage to leave her warded infirmary again. She managed to sweet-talk the void wall into giving her two entire 1L bottles of Pedialyte; literally the only thing she can remember about this is that they had a teenage patient once who took MDMA for a rave, stayed up all night dancing, and then collapsed of dehydration. 

Knife at the ready, she asks various students until she's able to learn from the Shanghai table that the creepy Mandarin-speaking maleficer kid is stalking some other girl. Lily? And someone saw them in the library earlier. 

Well, if Wen Qing is willing to accompany her, they have some MEDICAL FOLLOWUP to do. Which is an important component of nursing care that Wen Qing also needs to be learning about, so. 

Carrying her knife in one hand, with a bottle of Pedialyte awkwardly shoved into both her front pockets, she treks library-ward with Wen Qing. 

Oh no. Reading is hard.

Why are they trying to keep the maleficer alive again.

Lily looks up at the sound of footsteps, and barely keeps the look of relief off her face. It's Wen Quing. She's saved.

Marian can try to explain, quietly, while they're on the stairs. 

"He's our patient. I'm not - if there's, like, a justice system in here, I won't stop the enclaves from deciding to execute him? But medical ethics means that you do your best for every patient. Even if they're a convinced criminal. ...I had a patient once who was brought in from prison." 

.......wait did he get a girlfriend? She's so confused. 

Marian smiles and waves at Xue Yang. 

"Hi - you must be Lily? I'm the school nurse. I gave him some drugs earlier because he, uh, came to the infirmary and wanted that. So I wanted to follow up and make sure he's all right." 

She offers the bottles of Pedialyte to Xue Yang. "Uh, can one of you who speaks Mandarin tell him that it's important to drink lots of fluids when you take the drugs I gave him. This has electrolytes and stuff too." 

To Xue Yang in Mandarin: "It is important to drink this or you'll get sick."

Xue Yang has never drunk this weird thing when he's on drugs before and he's still alive. He looks at it suspiciously.

"It's just water with sugar and some salt in it. ...Did he eat supper?" 

In English: "Yes, I'm Lily. And it's been apparent. He's been staring at things all afternoon and being very touchy feely." She pets him on the head. 

To Xue Yang, she says: "Please drink it for me? I can give you a little candy with it." 

Then she looks over at Wen Quing. 

"Wen Quing. A pleasure to see you here. Would you please look at this new design for a shop sign I want to show to Nie Huaisang? It's very important to me that he get it right."

She tears the page out of her binder and offers it, badly done lily and all.

Petition! For things! To stop happening!

She takes out her acupuncture needles, aims carefully, and throws them. 

...Suddenly he's collapsed on the floor and he can't move. 

He struggles against the needles piercing his wrists and ankles.

Marian goes rigid. 

"Wen Qing. What. Is happening." 

"Apparently he killed Song Lan."

"That's–" 

"Oh." 

"Fuck." 

"Or so Lily claims. I'm not going to believe her without some sort of the investigation-- no offense intended, Lily."

In Mandarin: "Lily! Lily! She hurt me! Lily, help!"

Marian is INTERNALLY SCREAMING but she has a lot of practice at keeping that sort of thing internal. 

"Yeah," Marian says tightly. "I - sorry - but he's my patient so there had fucking better be an investigation." 

In English: "Respectfully, I'm so fucking dead if I'm lying, mostly from him. But I'm willing to submit to truth potion."

She pats his head softly. In Mandarin: "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."

"Did he, like, literally confess it to you? Are you sure he was telling the truth?" 

Marian...doesn't, actually, doubt that this kid would have killed another kid to get in. He did, in fact, talk to her about doing crimes. She just...doesn't want him to die. Because she's attached. Like an idiot.