"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."

"I'll try not to, but denying it in advance also doesn't look great." 

"There is that. Now we know why no one goes about wearing shirts that say 'I am not mind controlled, ask me how'."

"Well, nobody comes in with more than a few outfits. What would you do if you did get mind-controlled, go topless?"

"Wear it inside-out, of course."

"Oh, of course! Silly of me."

Lucia wanders into the library, that evening, where El is sitting with--Dubai?--and settles in with her Sanskrit studying. She was going to take a piece of floor, but calling back the sophomore that the senior sent away would have been awkward...oh well. 

El is studying her Arabic, absorbing bits of it from the surrounding kids while they mutter to each other, and totally missing the approach of a bit of malicious origami.

"Excuse me," Lucia says politely, and then leaps up, drawing her sword and stabbing the origami dramatically before anyone has time to yell. 

She pokes at the edge of the paper with a pencil. 

"...This," she says coldly, "isn't a mal." 

"- is it not? Have you skewered someone's algebra?"

"More like someone's shop homework. I--"

"...I...think maybe Todd decided to--assassinate me?" 

"- with that? Anyone who's survived four years in this place knows it would take at least a naga or three to take you out."

She frowns. "You're right. It's not a mal, that's--an advantage--but not enough of one, and I don't talk about the shiny thing, mostly--maybe...someone was trying to kill someone else here? --Hey, Dubai kids, have any of you pissed anyone else off lately?" 

They all shake their heads, eyes quite wide.

"Magnus walked by a bit ago," El remarks after they have determined that there is no obvious assassin to be after any of the Dubai kids.

"...I don't know Magnus to have...anything...against...Dubai..." she says slowly, "--Oh, crap."

"Probably after me, not you, as you lay the golden eggs."

"--What? After you? Why would he go--after you--okay, what I thought was, if he managed to hurt someone from Dubai, then Dubai would look less safe, thus less appealing, thus less likely that you would, uh, lead me there by the 'nose,' buuuut yeah if that's what he's worried about I guess taking you out would be more direct! Great!" She presses her fingers together in a white-knuckled steeple. "Ugh. Okay, step one, I'm going to go tell him way the hell off. Would you care to join me?"

"Suspect at the moment he might bear a strong resemblance to metaphorical beer."

"That's so valid!" 

Lucia storms off to confront Magnus. 

The next morning there are all kinds of rumors about what happened in the library that night. 

One rumor says that Lucia formally renounced her enclave membership after Todd Quayle tried to kill her to prevent the situation in the graduation hall from getting any worse. Another rumor says that Lucia sucked all the mana out of the New York pool and refused to put it back. A third and particularly buzz-inducing one says that she announced that she and El were graduation allies. A fourth says that she told Magnus that she prevented a war between New York and Dubai by promising to move to the Dubai enclave after graduation. A fifth says that she announced that she and El were going to found a new enclave together and use it to teach orphaned mundane-born wizard children how to be mal-killing machines like Lucia. A sixth claims that Lucia intends to graduate early. A seventh holds that El faked the attack in order to turn Lucia against New York. 

Whatever the truth, when Lucia turns up at breakfast that morning, it's in a very bad mood. She stomps through the line, being less careful than usual to spoil as little food as possible while killing every nasty critter hiding in it, and sets her tray down on the table with a decidedly unhappy clack. 

"I'd ask what shat in your porridge but you haven't got your sword out so it can't have been anything very juicy. You know, if you want to build an enclave together to teach orphaned mundane-born wizardlings the blade you have to tell me these things."

"If I--wait, what?" 

"The rumor mill is terribly excitable."

"Okay, I, uh, may have said some things last night which were premature at best, but--absolutely none of them involved orphans? Or swords?"

"Oh, the sword remark was just my noting you're in a mood."