Hash browns. Scrambled eggs. Milk. Two apples, since Lucia's not obviously going to feed herself.

She bolts. 

She doesn't know if El doesn't want anyone to know she killed a maw-mouth, or if she just doesn't want to talk about it, but if Lucia wasn't pretty sure that the maw-mouth was already dealt with, she would definitely bolt to try to go deal with it. 

When she doesn't find it, people will probably assume Todd Quayle was lying, which serves him right, considering the poaching thing. 

After the first couple of minutes running aimlessly through the halls, trying to find anything worth killing, she remembers her priorities and starts muttering lists of Sanskrit vocabulary under her breath. 

She surfaces in time for lunch, which is good, because she's ravenous. 

"Sorry for running off like that," she says, uncharacteristically subdued. 

"I'm not the one you starved over it." She has the apple in her pocket and adds it to Lucia's tray.

"Blesh you," she says, simultaneous with crunching into the apple. 

After she's gotten some food into her, she asks, "--Do you think he was right. That I'm making the graduation hall worse." 

"Maybe, but to hell with him, he shoved a kid into the dark and told himself it was barely murder because Mika would have died in a week anyway, nothing gives Todd bloody Quayle more right to live than Mika or any of the kids you've saved." Hot dog. Chomp.

"--Well. Yeah. I'm not wondering if I should stop, I'm wondering if next time I get into an argument about whether I should sneak down to the graduation hall early to thin the herd, I'll finally win." 

"That's the kind of argument you have? You're a nutter, how would you get out again? Normally kids only escape because they proper vanish when they hit the gates."

Shrug. "However I managed to get in? Mals bigger than me get into the school all the time." 

"Yeah, and if ninety percent of them get eaten up on their way to trying it's no skin off our noses."

She opens her mouth. 

She closes her mouth. 

She says, "Ugh, why do you have to keep being reasonable and right." 

"It is my curse."

"When I have the argument with anyone in New York it's always just 'I'll tell your mom.' Which, like, has worked so far, but it was wearing a bit thin." 

"Well, I don't know her socially so you're safe from that from me."

"And thus you are forced to resort to being sensible." Sigh. "I guess I have to be glad it came up, I don't think sensible is in their repertoires when the first argument fell through. And I wouldn't, actually, be better off for not having been warned of the problem." 

"Delighted to be of service, naturally."

"That's 'cause you're the best!" 

She doesn't vanish again after lunch; not more than usual, anyway. Later she swings by El's room to exchange the (full) crystal on her person for another drained one. 

"Cheers. Do you reckon your clavemates'll kill me a lot or only a little if they notice?"

"Do you think I should kill Todd Quayle?"

"What am I, your pastor? If you have time to ask probably you shouldn't kill anyone. I guess you could lean on his alliance not to let him back in if you compensated for the mana they'd be out, but they must've promised the valedictorian a New York seat. I assume he's not been cut off the power sharer."

"He has not. --Sorry. I shouldn't lean on you like that. I guess I was hoping that the answer would be obvious enough if you weren't me that you could just snap it at me without it being a whole thing."

"Pretty sure the obvious answer is that you shouldn't kill people. Rather famous in its obviousness. I'm not mourning Jack, mind you, but since you've time to ask."

"But Jack could have killed you!" 

Sigh. 

"You're right! You're very right. It just sucks when, uh, being right does not solve all problems immediately, which is the entire human condition, so suck it up, Lucia. Anyway, I haven't told anyone in New York about your mana crystals."

"Well, if they notice, please don't let them think I'm blackmailing you or some such nonsense. I wouldn't at all take this if you had to get it the normal way."

Snort. "If I had to build mana the normal way, Operation: Santa Claus would never have gotten off the ground, and then where would we be? Anyway, everyone in New York believes I'm hopelessly gone on you, if anyone decides you're up to something it'd be, like, mind control."

"Well, definitely also don't let them think I'm doing that."