If it's not too distracting Julia would like to watch his process and ask him questions about makeup! Not about his affinity really, just about what colors he likes best and if he prepared in any way for having such an international set of faces to dress and what his favorite skin tone is and whether they should have a prom.

"On myself I tend to go with natural-look tones for the most part, but on the occasions I've gone flashier I've done reddish purples, black and gold, blue and silver with some pink..."

"I didn't have a Tumblr but I did have an Instagram and look at Youtube a lot, and looked into how to manage different skin tones, yes. I didn't get nearly as deep into - diverse hair products - as I'd wanted, though, so I will need to study up if someone from Africa wants hair gel."

"Skin tones in general are all really interesting but the most striking canvases are either really dark or really light; however, if you mean me to get hyperspecific, there was a Thai woman on Youtube whose skin would pick up whatever she was wearing as an undertone, it was really something, and then she could put any color she wanted on top..."

"A prom doesn't sound practical. Maybe people could take turns standing guard for date nights or something, lower-key."

"I guess. A date night is a lot more pressure, though, it's much less complicated to go to a dance with someone than out on an entire date! If a prom were right after graduation it'd probably be safe. Wouldn't work for the freshmen but freshmen don't go to prom anyway, it's something to look forward to for when you're older. At mundie high schools."

"I'm not sure people are in the mood immediately after graduation."

"This school," says Julia emphatically, "has a morale problem. Maybe group therapy will help."

"I wasn't aware group therapy was one of its services."

"It was the nurse's idea!! See, she can get stuff from the void if it's for a therapeutic purpose. And she was really sad about that Toronto girl who, you know, had a breakdown and walked into the void, and she was like, 'Julia, I heard you have a therapy rug, do you think we should do group therapy'? And I was like - if the Void will give you scented candles, and snacks, and maybe boxes of tissues, and chocolate....I feel like that'd be really good for peoples' mood, you know?"

"...huh. I guess if the void will produce those things given a therapeutic purpose for them it's worth following through on the purpose to make subsequent requests convincing."

"Yeah! We don't know for sure but she told it that kids weren't getting enough to eat and it gave her like pallets and pallets of shelf-stable nutrient slurry, and it's not that much mana to make it good, and it's great to have for emergencies. So I think it likes her. And maybe we can get lots of scented candles and snacks as long as we do some therapy. I'm not thinking anything hardcore, like, we'll do yoga together and talk about what's going on emotionally for us."

"Who's invited?" asks Isla.

"You guys can come! I was planning to drag Rebecca and Karen along so even if no one else shows up I don't feel stupid but also the nurse was gonna tell the boy who announces things to announce it, we might get lots of interest. Wednesday after lunch. If people suck I won't invite them back and if there's way too many of them then maybe we'll segregate by birth months or something. Zodiac signs? Are those Buddhist? My rug is Buddhist so I'm going for a Buddhist vibe."

"The Zodiac signs which are maybe Buddhist are the ones that go by year, not month, so it might not work that well."

" - huh, fair enough. Well, if we get a big crowd we'll figure out what to do. Probably it'll mostly be people who know us, the first day, because everyone else is going to be like 'what's New York playing at', but if it works word'll get out pretty fast that what we're playing at is chocolate. Do you suppose it's good or bad for the therapeutic purpose of group therapy if everyone's like 'I'M ONLY BEING EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE FOR THE CHOCOLATE', seems like it could be bad but also like, maybe it's safer to have feelings if you get something out of it so everyone will definitely go 'wow, feelings, that was strategic and clever of you'."

"Huh, I haven't got a good guess either way there."

"I have a long list of things to say if I'm the only person who wants to talk but hopefully other people will think of things too! I like the nurse, I hope she doesn't get eaten, she's very practical. Traded us the shelf-stable nutrient slurry for wards and bodyguards."

"She must be very quick on the uptake."

"I guess! Maybe she lived in a horrible dystopia before she came here."

"I couldn't say." Ennis tests another swatch and is satisfied with this one. "Your eyeshadow. Do you want me to put some on you now and you'll owe me a favor?"

"Ooooooh!! ....I dunno that having someone else do my eyeshadow's worth that much of a favor. A small favor."

"Yes, I'm not going to ask anything much for it. Something on the order of letting me cut in the cafeteria line or finding me another pair of hands for some particularly irritating shop project."

"All right, deal."

On goes the periwinkle. Ennis presents the compact mirror when finished.

"Nice!!!! You're a genius, Ennis, fire boy's just jealous."

"Thank you."

"Maybe he'd be less jealous if he had some nice makeup. I feel like he's got, you know, classic Scholomance problem even though he just got here, kinda colorless skin like he's never seen the sun? If I had that complexion I'd go for, like, blush, interesting contouring, you could make even a very pale eyeshadow striking..."