Two people drag a third, a girl who looks on the brink of death, in. The boy's holding her under her shoulders and the girl's holding her feet. 

"You speak English?" the boy asks distractedly of Marian. "Uh, parley vous frances, spreketche deutche -"

Okay for fuck's sake. Seriously????

Marian scrambles up. "Yes - oui je parles francais aussi - I speak English -" the latter was Dutch, maybe? Ish? but she just barely knows enough Dutch to recognize the two words included. "What - oh god - what happened to her - here, get her on the gurney -" 

Bella puts Sophie's bags on the floor next to one of the infirmary cots. "This is Sophie. She might have the flu or have a magical problem."

Sure does look like it! She's very pale, coated in sticky sweat, and very feverish. She looks badly out of it. 

"Do you know which it is?" the boy asks Marian.

Marian hasn't gotten a good look yet but her very quick look is CONCERNING. 

She ignores the boy's questions because how is she supposed to know 

"I - uh - what sort of magical problem? Can you tell me any more history - I, uh, sorry, also can I get someone to go find Wen Qing from Shanghai, she's my apprentice - and also Ribo who's in....uh....she gave me her room number sorry one second -" and she digs frantically in her pockets. 

"Someone might have drained her life force." He freezes up for a second about Shanghai and then realizes that if Shanghai corroborates the diagnosis that's just obviously good and if they seem to be denying it they can cross that bridge when they come to it. 

- New Yorker thinks the Shanghaier is okay, sure. "I can go knock on - Ribo's? - door."

"I -" 

Vanya.

"....Oh. Fuck. I - sorry - I need Wen Qing right now and I - one second - Ribo's room is 225B - she gave me her schedule but it's a weekend, right -?" 

"Yeah, I can check the library if she isn't home." Bella jogs out to go find Ribo.

"- And someone's getting Wen Qing, right - I really need her help right now I can't deal with this by myself -" 

Marian finishes wrestling Sophie onto one of the gurneys and then looks frantically around the room at everyone present. 

New Yorker will yell at someone in the cafeteria to go get a Wen Qing.

Okay. She can do this. 

Focus. 

"Sophie! Hey! Can you hear me? Uh, squeeze my hand if you can hear me...?" 

Is that a handsqueeze or is it a twitch. Not immediately obvious.

Marian is very used to working with delirious weak ICU patients, and she's - pretty sure - that's probably a handsqueeze? Ish? 

....Okay for fuck's sake. At least this is happening AFTER she managed to argue and sweet-talk and coax the void into giving her slightly more stuff. 

"- I'm guessing no, but does literally anyone else here know how to take a blood pressure or put in an IV?" 

.....Apparently not. Which is honestly unsurprising but also. Fuck. Marian is NOT used to dealing with critically ill patients in this kind of incredibly-insufficiently facilities and with zero backup, if she'd wanted to do that with her life she'd have become a...paramedic, or one of those insane medical people who flies around in disaster response helicopters, or something. 

Focus. 

"- Sophie," she says, in the calmest voice she can manage. "I'm going to put in an IV, okay?" 

She has exactly one bag of saline (from the hospital she was kidnapped from) and one bag of IV tubing, which the void kindly gave her earlier when she was asking it very nicely in hopes of getting supplies stocked. It's labeled in Russian-or-something but at least it has the same kind of luer-lock tip as the IV supplies that are, also, borrowed-or-stolen-or-something from the Montfort Hospital. 

....She does not have a rubber tourniquet because she is an idiot. Gah. Probably her hair elastic will sort of do? - Now her hair is everywhere, but she can maybe attempt to find some veins on Sophie? 

Finding veins on incredibly dehydrated people is the WORST. 

Okay maybe that's a vein? She's going to gamble on it. 

"I'm sorry, Sophie, this is going to poke -" 

Where's Wen Qing she needs some HELP in here. 

Wen Qing runs in. "What happened? What do you need me for?"

"This is Sophie, they -" vague gesture at the New York students whose names she doesn't know, "- just brought her in. She's - critically ill, in shock - they're not sure if it's a normal illness or if a - the thing that happened to–" fuck right patient confidentiality, "- uh, if a maleficer half drained her life force? I don't know how I'm supposed to tell! Do you have spells for treating fever or dehydration?" 

"I have a spell but the patients hate it-- it makes them incredibly cold--"

"....Yeah, I bet. I don't think she's in any shape to mind it. Please do that right now." 

Okay for fuck's sake there HAS to be a vein there - 

Sophie makes a deeply unhappy sound.

She mutters something beautiful, almost songlike, in a language that Marian doesn't know.

"Would one of Lan Xichen's the calming spells help, I know a couple-- one of the non-physiological ones, we don't need to do more to her body now--"

"- I'm sorry!" Marian mutters to Sophie, simultaneously pinning her arm down firmly using one elbow so she can't squirm and ruin the IV that Marian is pretty sure she almost has. "....Sorry, what? - Oh, yeah, that's not a bad idea. If you're sure you have one that doesn't have physiological effects." 

More poetry, this in a different and significantly more sing-songy language.

It suddenly seems like a very good idea to Sophie that she should be still and quiet and think through her actions carefully before she does them.

IV!!!!! Wooooooo!!! 

"- Sophie, I'm so sorry about that - I'm all done poking you for now -" since she can't do fucking bloodwork here anyway and even if she could she has no idea what tests to run to tell if Sophie is dying of the flu or of the same horrifying thing that almost killed Vanya. "Hey - can you look at me -?" 

Sophie, thus enspelled, stops making noises. And squirming.

And, uh, her breathing has slowed down.

She turns her head, very tranquilly, towards Marian.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Marian hates her life so much right now! 

She would have a much better idea of how bad a problem this was if she had ANY MONITORING EQUIPMENT. Which she does not have, aside from a very sad improvised attempt at a blood pressure cuff that she made out of some fabric she traded for last night. She doesn't think Wen Qing has a spell for measuring blood oxygenation. Maybe she should ask her to make one but it's a little late for that now, isn't it. 

Calm. Calmcalmcalm focus on her feet against the floor she's okay she can do this -

(Shit but she's forgetting to watch out for magic death monsters– nevermind no time for that now either the wizard students will or they won't and she has to focus on her job.) 

"Sophie," she says, with forced calm. "I need you to focus and - take some deep breaths with me, okay?" 

And to the New York kids still hovering, "- Hey. Sorry, you - had a question for me?" 

Deep breaths.

Sophie can do that.

Probably.

(They are not happy breaths.)

"Yeah, we need to know if she's sick with a natural illness or if someone did this to her.  - are you sure Shanghai's spell is making things better not worse -"

In the same moment, Wen Qing cuts the spell. "Not that one. --The sedatives seem useful but I don't want to experiment more while she's in a state this fragile-- why do we have the audience--"

"- Uh, it seems mixed? She was tracking me better than before, maybe? ...I don't know, I don't actually have any normal ICU meds or equipment here!" 

And to Wen Qing, "- I don't know? They hauled her in here and wanted to know if she's sick with a natural illness or if it could be that someone drained her life force? I have no idea how to tell!" 

She turns to them and turns on her best I-am-second-in-command-of-the-most-powerful-enclave-in-the-Sinosphere-and-you-will-listen-to-me voice. "You will be quiet or you will get out. We are trying to save this girl's life and we don't need the distraction."

.....Okay, wow, that's impressive. Like, ER charge nurse level impressive, despite the fact that Wen Qing is what, like, sixteen or seventeen? Wow. 

Marian starts priming IV tubing, since she hasn't yet had a chance to teach Wen Qing how to do that. If it were less of an emergency she could make this a Teaching Moment but now really doesn't seem like the time. 

Are we doing a glaring contest, two can do a glaring contest. "If we were sure you were irying to save her life, we'd delightedly leave."

What the hell is happening right now. 

"Hey everyone listen up and take a deep breath," Marian says in her calmest sweetest voice, the one she uses with patients who's she's deeply enraged with, "and please stand out of the way and be quiet for the next two minutes so I can get this set up, and after that you can explain to me what context I'm missing here. ...Wen Qing I don't mean you. I need you to go to my supply shelf and get the thermometer and the blood pressure cuff and take vital signs like I showed you too before. And start a notebook entry for her." 

They will stand there silently. They don't want to interfere with the nurse, they just want to prevent a murder! If necessary!

Wen Qing does as she's told but she still thinks these whoever they are shouldn't be in her infirmary. 

Bella finds Ribo after some hunting and brings her down to the infirmary.

"Hi, Bella said you needed me?"

"Yes. Need some of your diagnostic spells. This is Sophie, she's - well, she's obviously seriously ill - running a high fever, in shock, really low BP rapid heart rate - they're wanting to diagnose if it's just a bad flu or if someone malefice'd her? ...I suppose it's too much to ask that you can literally do a test for flu virus presence?" 

Pause. 

"- Also. Shit. Anyone here who's not a freshman won't have a flu vaccine for this year. ...If you haven't had a flu vaccine this year, don't touch her and find something to use as a mask over your face right away." For all the good that will do. 

Instead of that, the New York kid takes a step forward and breathes deeply of Sophie's face. "Not that I am delighted to get the flu but we really really want to know if she has it."

"I can test for viral load and signs of viral induced cell death. I don't know if that would be conclusive though maybe being drained suppresses the immune system. Mother hasn't studied that. I don't think I need to worry about the flu." She pulls out a small book and a magnifying glass before flipping through it.

"I will gladly get her blood injected in my veins if you stop distracting us while we're trying to save this girl's life!"

"...I don't think the flu is a blood illness! I guess you can check if she had AIDS that way!"

She is going to ignore them and fill out her notebook.

"Should I test for flu then? I can only really do one full body diagnostic unless someone else is giving me mana, but I could confine the flu test to a smaller area it would just be less conclusive."

"Test her nasopharynx? That's where we swab for flu tests in the hospital, if she's sick it should have a pretty high viral concentration– Sophie! Deep breaths!" Whyyyyyy didn't she prioritize getting O2 sat monitoring right away, she feels BLIND and DEAF without any monitoring this is the worst. "- Actually if you can do a diagnostic for blood oxygenation that would be really good to know!" 

She turns to the New York kids hovering. "One of you needs to spot Ribo some mana, okay?" Calmly and sweetly, like she's talking to that one ER doctor who only communicates in shouting. 

Ribo flips through her book again and mutters a spell. "Blood oxygenation is 86%"

"Sophie, I need you to breathe for me, okay? In and out-- should I try calm-and-focused and maybe she can focus on the breathing--"

"...Yeah. Worth a try. That's - it's not critically low but it's not doing her body any favors. There's no chance that you have a spell for, uh, concentrating oxygen in the air?" Frantic look around the room at the other kids. "Is that an alchemy thing? Can one of you try to get a spellbook from the void right now that might have a spell for doing that? ....Also, you over there, come here and hold this IV bag and squeeze it." 

Bella comes over and holds the IV bag and squeezes it.

She mutters the spell under her breath and then says, "Sophie, focus on your breathing. Can you do that for me?"

She can certainly try!

"Did someone give Ribo more mana. I need her to cast the flu diagnostic spell ASAP. And - who's on finding out if anyone's got a spell to give Sophie oxygen, I want someone on that - you, you're on that -" 

Okay. Patient is...as stabilized as she's likely to get in the next two minutes. Admission basics are not done because Marian still has no idea what's going on. 

She turns to the oldest-looking of the New York kids hovering and glaring at Wen Qing. "All right. Now would be a good time to explain what's going on. Why do you think someone might've maleficed her?" 

"Just to confirm nasopharynx is the back of the nose right? I don't always remember the English words for these things."

"Yeah, that. Right before the nasal passages link up in the back of your throat." 

Wen Qing gives mana to Ribo because SOMEONE here has her priorities in order.

Wen Qing is great and Marian is so incredibly grateful to have her as an apprentice!

"How much mana does the oxygenation spell take - I want followups every five minutes, if you can handle that, and Wen Qing you should check blood pressure and heart rate and resp rate every couple of minutes and chart that for me okay?" 

And she goes back to waiting impatiently for one of the incredibly obnoxious New Yorkers to inform her of what the fuck. 

"Thanks," she reviews the page from earlier and then mutters another spell. "The load of influenza viruses is 500x what I would expect. With the amount Wen Qing just gave me I should be able to cast blood oxygenation ten times."

"We were investigating a maleficer who's been stalking our freshmen. The kid being a maleficer isn't in doubt, he's admitted it, though he said he might stop in here. One of the people we interviewed mentioned that the maleficer had been friendly with Sophie here on a supply run, and that they'd tried to warn Sophie the kid was dangerous but to no avail. Then they realized mid-interview they hadn't seen Sophie since that supply run. We tried as quickly as possible to find her room, broke down the door, and found her there on the brink of death."

"- Oh. Shit. Was she, uh, lucid enough to ask about it, earlier...?" 

"She was delirious but she seemed to recognize his name and said no, he's her friend, she's just sick - which is something, and we obviously passed that along, but, uh, it's not definitive, he would've needed her consent to pull from her so he might well have been nice to her."

And in a low voice, "the maleficer is associated with Shanghai. I don't think your Shanghai friend would hurt the patient but - we'd rather observe, right, so we can testify that that didn't happen..."

"So she - might not have realized that was what was happening? Is there, uh, any documentation on what having malia drained from you feels like?"

There's someone she could theoretically ask but sending someone to find them is arguably a breach of medical ethics so she'll try other avenues first. 

"There's probably documentation somewhere but I don't know myself - I know there are sneaky artifacts that take just a little bit when you use them, and that's not noticeable - if he did it, I'd expect he meant to take just a little but was inexperienced and drained her too far."

"Would the artifact be on her - have you searched her or her room for it? I - sorry, I know - I realize it's important that you get a diagnosis on this but it's never, uh, come up for me before in the hospital. Obviously. So I'm...yeah, not sure if running any tests now could distinguish whether it was that making the flu hit her so hard, or - making her too weak to get up and drink water, I think the worst thing wrong with her is dehydration." 

And to Sophie, "- hey. Look at me a moment? Good. Is there anyone you want here with you? Friends, siblings, someone from your enclave?" 

"Her room has an extremely magical set of clothes that she agreed to make him, we don't really know if that could be a maleficing anchor or not, probably not one that a freshman could do alone. Nothing else but he could've taken it with him once she collapsed."

"Could he have gone in and out? Was her door locked?" 

Sophie's eyes come into focus at Marian's question, but it takes her a few seconds of coughing before she can rasp "...no enclave. No... no friends. I - want to - tell him. Sorry."

"It's okay, this isn't your fault, you haven't done anything wrong," Marian finds herself saying, half-automatic. "I - you want to tell who? The kid who you made the magic clothes for? What - I don't think it's a good idea to have him come here." 

"Got him in trouble," Sophie insists. She's squinting like, if she had more water in her body, she'd be crying.

Poor thing! Marian feels so bad about this! It's deeply offensive to all of her thoroughly-engrained ICU nurse instincts for a patient to be alone and scared in a hospital.

(A shitty awful hospital with hardly any supplies or equipment, staffed by one barely-not-a-new-grad nurse and one medical apprentice with two entire shifts and most of Gray's Anatomy to work with. She feels like she's failing the school and the students and poor Sophie. She owes them better, she should have - tried harder, gotten herself prepared for this faster - she'd thought she had time, Wen Qing said the magic death monsters wouldn't get really bad for weeks...) 

"You didn't get him in trouble," she says, as soothingly as she can manage. "We just need to find out whether he hurt you or not, and if he didn't hurt you then he won't be in trouble. - Right?" This last question is addressed to the New York students. 

Wen Qing, who has her priorities in order, is too busy monitoring Sophie to track any of this conversation except that a maleficer maybe drained this girl. Ugh. She hopes they catch him.

" - yeah, we're not going to arrest anyone who didn't do anything."

Sophie slumps back onto the gurney a bit. Remembers to keep breathing, without being told, this time.

"...he was... scared," she manages, vaguely. "For me. Said... I should be more dangerous."

Oh no. This is breaking her heart. 

...That does sort of sound like the kind of thing Xue Yang would say. Marian is SO TORN. On the one hand he...literally told her he did crimes? And he's definitely a maleficer and this is perhaps relevant information to the investigation. On the other hand, there's medical confidentiality to think of, and she apparently can't kick out the NY kids for a private chat with Wen Qing. 

Also she's very very busy and distracted and really not in the mood to be running a criminal investigation at the same time as a patient crashing on her. 

She pats Sophie's arm. "Mmm," she says, for lack of any actual content to contribute. And - oh, right, patient history, that's a thing. "Sophie, do you remember when you first started feeling sick? ...Wen Qing, can you write down anything she tells us please." 

"I went to bed and - woke up feeling bad. Drank water, but it kept coming up. I was - working on his suit - he wanted a suit and I wanted him to have it - he never had anything - poor boy -"

More coughing. "And, and I just... fell into the stitching... you know how it is, when you're doing what you love... and I looked up and I didn't... didn't know when it was... I would go to the loo for water but it's, it's dangerous, you know, and it was easier to keep going..."

That also sounds like Xue Yang. Marian hadn't realized he had befriended more than one freshman girl? Apparently he's just very cute when he's on drugs?

(....If he did in fact malefice Sophie then this is 100000% Marian's fault and she's going to feel so terrible about it.) 

"That makes sense. Did you, um, have him come see you to check how the clothes fit or anything?" 

She grins. "I never needed to before and I didn't need it now. It's part of me, my sewing - I can look at you and see how it'll fit."

Oh no this girl is sweet and adorable and she's going to die and it's going to be Marian's fault. 

"That's amazing," she says, making eye contact and squeezing Sophie's hand because even in the worst emergencies you can almost always spare three seconds to be reassuring and kind. "You just - hang tight and rest, focus on breathing, okay?" 

And she turns to Bella, who's being much more helpful and less obnoxious than the New Yorkers. "Hey. I need - to consult someone about this. Do you know anyone from the Sacramento enclave?" 

"Yes, I can go get Raleigh if you don't want me to keep squeezing this bag?"

"I've got it." Marian takes the now half-empty bag back from her. "Tell Raleigh that he needs to get, uh - Larisa? The senior from Sacramento. Tell her about the, uh, suspicions we have about Sophie's illness, and - that I need her input on that." 

"Okay..." Off Bella treks to look for Raleigh or another Sacramentan.

Most of the enclave is currently in their reading room in the library, but both seniors are conspicuously absent. 

Raleigh scrambles up. "Bella! What's wrong?" 

"The school nurse is looking for Larisa, for some reason having to do with the possibility that a dying girl in the infirmary was maleficed rather than solely having the flu real bad, do you know where Larisa is?"

:I - shit - again? ...Sorry, I have no idea where Larisa is, some New York student came in and grabbed her for an urgent secret meeting." 

"Drat. - what do you mean again."

Oh. Shit. He's so bad at infosec. 

Raleigh takes a few steps closer to her and lowers his voice to a whisper. "Please don't spread this around, but - I don't know how much you've heard rumors about the maleficer incidents last year? Um, Vanya was - involved, in one of them. His - boyfriend, at the time - drained most of his life force while he was on a maleficing spree. It's why..." 

And he gestures vaguely at Vanya, who's currently curled up in a corner, miserably glaring at a calculus textbook. 

"Oh. I bet that's why the nurse wanted to know if I knew anyone from Sacramento. Uh, can you tell Larisa when she gets back?"

"I don't know when she's going to get back! How, uh. Urgent. Is this. Is the girl going to....?" He trails off. 

"She's been able to talk, which I think is probably good? But the nurse doesn't exactly have a whole hospital behind her and she might not be able to save her."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah why is he trying to handle this, he's a freshman, this is way over his head. 

"I - should we send someone to New York and find out where they're meeting and when they'll be done? I don't - want to just sit here and wait, if she might not make it..." 

He glances over at Vanya again. 

"I - I mean, we could ask him. But it's - he's really traumatized about it, you know?" 

"I have no idea what Larisa's doing so I don't know how reasonably she can be pulled away from it! Just send her to the nurse's office and we'll hope it's before Sophie dies."

"I, yeah, okay– Wait. Shit. It's Sophie? ...Oh my god." 

"Is that significant -?"

"I - I just mean - I've met her, she was on our supply run - Shannon said she was really sweet..." Now Raleigh is feeling incredibly ashamed of how apparently he wouldn't be as upset if it were just some freshman girl he HADN'T met and he must be such a heartless person. "I - does she have anyone there with her? I should - maybe Shannon can help - and they're not friends friends but I wouldn't want to be in the hospital alone..." 

"It's already pretty crowded but if Shannon wanted to sit on the bed with her maybe the nurse would allow it?"

"And she's healing affinity - she’d want to at least try to help -“

"Sure. I'm going to go back down now but if I see Shannon before you do I'll tell her. You'll tell Larisa?"

"Yeah, I'll tell her." 

Bella heads back down toward the infirmary.

Raleigh wants to go looking for Shannon, but he'd better stay here and wait for Larisa. 

Shannon isn't actually that hard to find! She's perusing a section of the library near Bella's path from the Sacramento reading room to the stairs. 

"Oh - Shannon, Raleigh said you'd want to know, Sophie's in the infirmary - I'm just going now, do you want to come -"

“Sophie? Oh no, what happened - was it a mal -?”

"It's either the flu or, uh, a maleficer, we're not sure."

"A– what? Shit! Do they, uh, know - who might've...?" 

"Uh - I think possibly it shouldn't circulate through the whole school, you can ask the older kids in the infirmary about it maybe. But Raleigh said you knew Sophie and thought you might want to sit with her."

"...Right. Yeah. Of course." 

And Shannon will follow her. 

In the infirmary, Marian is busy pleading with the void wall for more IV fluids. She looks around. "Larisa– oh, sorry. Uh, who are you?" 

Aaaaaaah this is nervewracking! She's in the presence of a real actual medical professional and she's totally out of her depth! 

"I'm Shannon. I have a healing affinity and I - know Sophie a bit, can I - is there room -?" 

Marian is BUSY ACTUALLY. "Talk to Wen Qing." 

"The dehydration secondary to the flu, we think," she says. "Possibly both secondary to the maleficer draining her life force. Do you have spells that help with any of those or determining whether it's a maleficer or the induction flu?"

Eeeek. Oh no. "I - wait so you're not sure? Whether it was a maleficer or not?" 

"Not yet. We're focusing on keeping her alive for now."

Ribo looks up from where she's been trying to translate a relevant spell and turns to Shannon and waves. "I can answer your questions Marian and Wen Qing are pretty busy."

Shannon blinks at her. She...definitely looks familiar but right now Shannon's brain is failing at names even harder than usual.

"...I have a spell version of the potion I can make to treat morning sickness?" she offers. "If she's dehydrated from throwing up that might help. I can't cast it unless someone can spare some mana for me, though." Actually, she can just baaaaarely cast it at all. She couldn't have three months ago, and only can now because her parents helped her rewrite it to be mana-cheaper. (It correspondingly works less well, though mainly in duration rather than strength of effect.) 

"Try it. We're throwing everything at her."

Ribo looks at the New Yorkers, "Would one of you spot her the mana?"

New York guy doesn't look delighted about this but holds out his hand.

Marian turns around. 

"- Wouldn't be my favorite baseline plan but the void seems to be having a hard time with this very simple request." So far it's given her: IV magnesium, IV potassium, 25% albumin, something bright yellow that might be parenteral nutrition sugars and amino acids but is only labelled in Arabic, and 3% saline which will do the OPPOSITE OF HELP with dehydration. "If she's not puking I can almost certainly get it to give me Pedialyte. Maybe even a NG tube." 

This is very socially awkward but Shannon grits her teeth and accepts the mana from the New Yorker. 

"...Spell's in French," she warns. "Takes about three minutes." 

She wiggles herself past Wen Qing so she can squeeze in by Sophie's bedside. Sophie looks like shit. God. This is really upsetting. 

Ribo pulls out ear plugs and puts them in.

Ugh, she'll risk it, she doesn't have a free hand.

Shannon tries to keep her voice low, out of politeness. 

This is STRESSFUL. She's never tried casting a spell in a life-or-death situation before! Aaaaaah! 

The void gives her pedialyte AND a NG tube! Good void! 

"...Hey, Sophie? Uh, I'm really sorry about this but I need to put a tube down your nose so we can give you fluids." Sophie does not really seem alert enough to swallow safely, right now.

Currently Sophie is looking at Shannon, as if trying to remember who she is.

Shannon is busy incanting in French and also panicking, but she reaches out to squeeze Sophie's hand. 

Sophie seems to appreciate this!

She is probably going to appreciate having a nasogastric tube shoved into her nose much less! 

Just as the tube is being taped into place and Shannon is finishing her spell, someone else arrives at a run. 

"- You wanted me?" 

Marian, now busy trying to sweet-talk the void into giving her a syringe she can use to splooge Pedialyte down said tube, turns around. 

"- Oh, hey. Thanks for coming. Can you have a look at Sophie and say if it, uh, looks like she got her life-force drained." This is probably VERY not a diplomatic way of asking but she's tracking too many other things right now to worry about that. 

Larisa looks deeply unhappy about this, but nods. "What are her symptoms?" 

"Ask Wen Qing, I'm busy." 

That's presumably the Shanghai girl standing by the dying kid's bedside? 

Larisa sidles up to her. "Hey." 

"High fever, vomiting causing dehydration and shock, delirious, respiratory issues," Wen Qing says quickly.

Ugh, that's so...medical-speak. 

"Do you know how, uh, long it would've been...?" She looks toward the New York kids when she says this, not Wen Qing, who she's definitely SUSPICIOUS OF. 

"She was last seen Thursday, in the presence of a known maleficer; he could've done it then or Friday morning."

Larisa frowns. Looks at Sophie. "...Uh, the - case I know about - the student wouldn't've lasted that long without any treatment, he wasn't even conscious for multiple days. But I suppose she could've been drained less effectively. ...The, um, maleficer under suspicion is a freshman in this case, no?"

She turns back toward Marian, blatantly ignoring Wen Qing. "Is she at all able to communicate with us?" 

Marian is trying to very gently push some Pedialyte down the tube, which she has to take on faith is in the right place since she can't exactly get a fucking X-ray to confirm its placement, can she. (She HATES this place.) 

"...She's pretty out of it but she can talk. One second. - Sophie! Hey. Can you tell us how you're feeling right now?" 

"Bad," she says. "Trying - not to cough?"

"You need to cough sometimes, it'll clear the gunk in your lungs. Does it hurt when you cough?" 

"Can you ask her if she's feeling worse or better now than she was on Friday morning, or, um, whenever she first started feeling bad?" 

Sure, Marian can ask this too, though she's a bit worried two questions at once will just confuse Sophie. 

She starts coughing fervently instead of answering immediately.

"Thought," she says breathlessly after, "thought the tube would - oh. Better... or worse... I can't, I don't... really..."

Oh no what a poor sweet girl, trying to be a conscientious patient even when she's kind of dying. "It's fine! The tube goes to your stomach, not your lungs, coughing might be uncomfortable but it won't knock it out or anything." 

Helpless shrug at Larisa. 

Larisa turns back to the New York students. 

"S'not exactly the same symptoms? She's conscious and talking and seems to understand us - he wouldn't respond to words at all for a week. And the fever and breathing issues weren't symptoms he had, either. It - I guess I could see it, if she was already coming down with the flu and it just hit her like a ton of bricks once she had less life-force to fight it off? This is pretty extreme, right, young healthy kids don't get deathly ill of the flu." 

"I think she might've deteriorated so badly just because she wasn't able to get herself water? Since that's, like, super dangerous here. And maybe the teleporting thing is bad for you too." It definitely felt like it. "But...yeah. It's really rare that young people get this ill just with the flu, so that's still kind of weird." 

Shannon, spell complete, goes back to patting Sophie's hand and fretting. 

"If you don't need me for anything else," Larisa mutters tightly, "I'm not being useful and I have things to do. Bye." 

Marian is trying to be appropriately polite and grateful to the void for its efforts but she's getting really frustrated! She wants. Freaking. IV. Saline. 0.9%. This is like one of the world's most common IV substances, surely! 

She tried asking for "at least a litre" and instead of giving her anything reasonable, the void gave her a box of 100 of those 50% dextrose syringes. She does not fucking need 5 litres of 50% dextrose. She needs fluids because this girl is dying of dehydration. 

She shoves the box on the nearest empty shelf space - it's getting pretty crowded - and then spends an entire two minutes composing extemporaneous slam poetry about the void's wonderful generosity, and then she very sweetly asks it if she can have Lactated Ringer's. 

It can give her 500ccs of something labeled in Hebrew? Probably Hebrew. It's not like she can read it. 

"Does anyone here read Hebrew," Marian announces to the room at large, "I need to confirm what this fucking mystery fluid is." At worst she will TASTE IT but that is an incredibly deeply unreasonable strategy to need to resort to. 

"Yes. It's Lactated Ringer's."

Marian is going to KISS the void and tell it how much she loves it! ....And then hurry over to hook up more fluids to Sophie. And - maybe she'll break open a couple of syringes of dextrose 50% and push that in too, Sophie hasn't been eating, she probably does have low blood sugar. 

....Oh right she maybe doesn't have to guess. "Uh, Ribo? Any chance you have a spell for checking blood sugar? And, uh, can we check her oxygen sats again, if someone spots you the mana." A very meaningful glare is directed at the New York students, to indicate who Marian expects to do this. 

"I can do that." She puts aside her notebook and pencil and turns to a different page in her little spellbook. She goes and casts two short spells in succession the blood oxygen one with confidence after so much practice. The blood sugar one is a bit less certain but it's similar enough that it doesn't give her trouble. "Blood oxygen is up to 88% blood sugar is low though only .55 grams per liter." She also looks at the New York group.