"Yep," says the only freshman at the table. "What's up?"

"Bella, New Orleans. I heard about and am sorry for your loss. That having been said, is her room being used for anything? It won't get folded into a neighbor for a year, right?"

"We're keeping an eye on it but we're not using it right now. Why, do you want to rent it? For what?"

"I'm planning to do experiments on agglos as a side project and I can keep them under my bed but it would be preferable if I didn't need to. I don't expect them to be priority theft targets, and if she... floats back out of the void or whatever... I can put them under my bed after all."

"If you want to rent Chantal's room to do experiments on agglos, and the experiments aren't going to melt through the walls and eat the kid next door, that's fine by me."

"I am having a terrarium made with four compartments in which I will starve, poison, distribute birth control to, and use as a control group a divided population of agglos. As long as the kid next door doesn't like to eat agglos the worst case is the starvation condition breaks out and nibbles things."

Snort. "Sure, then. How long do you want it for, the rest of the year? What are you offering?"

"My affinity is metamagic, which so far means I have a spell for canceling potion effects and I am now learning one for calming down objects that have gone bad - as long as they aren't actively flying across the room to murder you, so that's not going to save you from shop assignments. I'm selling homework in my lit classes, though I don't remember spotting you in Cervantes or Victor Hugo. More generically I'm aiming to skip the mal studies final and I'll sell aimed-high assignments in that."

"Oh, interesting. Sure, you can have Chantal's room for the year in exchange for copies of all your mal studies work and calming down any rogue objects we bring you. You can quit anytime but we'll take the room back."

"I want to cap the rogue objects, it's going to take like half an hour per and I don't want to embroider all my own mana for that if you take it into your head to start a middleman business. Three things, and a few more if you cover the mana for them."

"I have better things to do than start a middleman business. We'll cover the mana if we ask more than once in the same month, how about."

"Two months."

"You value your time very highly, don't you. Sure, two months. Pleasure doing business with you."

"I'll let you know if I decide to go with another room," like if the murderer is caught before the containers are done, then she can stick them in Sophie's room and not have to trade anything, "elsewise come find me to copy my mal studies homework in that cafeteria region."

"Sure thing."

Bella dips her head politely and goes to mal studies early enough to get a good seat near the Sino boundary to see if she can trade books.