"Way to put me off my waffles." She's eating them anyway, of course.

She pulls her current crystal out of her shirt. 

She had picked it up last night, almost empty. It's completely full now. "Not as put off as I am, I bet," she says grimly, and starts devouring her breakfast with the kind of determination usually applied to particularly irksome mana-building. 

Aadhya sneaks nervous glances at seniors but applies herself to her French toast sticks and the lake of syrup she put on them.

Eventually the senior bell rings, and they all clear out. 

Lucia says, "Remember what Todd Quayle said, about hungry mals coming up from the graduation hall that usually wouldn't? Some of the walls on the bottom level are getting battered in from the other side. Last night I was doing what was supposed to be a quick patrol after curfew, and one weak point caved in. I got a make-and-mend up on it, but it's not going to last forever." 

As an aside, to Aadhya, "On the plus side, I got lots of bone to make beads and other things out of. Plus some other stuff on your wishlist, I'll bring it up to your room later." 

"- if you want to spot us I can make it known that I'll take bribes for accepting the maintenance assignment," Aadhya says.

"I'm seriously considering the possibility of just staying down there until the problem is solved and letting my homework join the party if it comes down to it." 

"You will die of sleep deprivation and then where shall we be?"

“I mean, I could take naps! I’m pretty sure if I was right there anything busting through would wake me up.”

"Not if it's gaseous, sneaky, soporific -"

“…I mean, if they break the walls, that’ll make noise regardless…”

"Oh, I see, so it's perfectly safe to sleep in a stairwell in the Scholomance as long as the walls maintain their structural integrity, because mals travel exclusively by burrowing through solid metal."

“…Point.” Mals don’t attack her but they have ever been known to attack people she was guarding, which means it is absolutely possible something would step on her on its way to the freshmen.

”I wonder if we could—replace the walls in chunks? Make new sections of wall, take down the old ones in small chunks, I kill the things that come through until there’s enough of a break to put the new wall up…”

"Phase change might help."

“Ooh, it might. —There was a plan to auction that, right?” she looks between El and Aadhya. “To seniors, presumably, so it probably wouldn’t be safe to invite them to watch, but what a demonstration.”

"My planned demo was liquefying the lignin in a piece of wood to make a book case, and then silver to inlay it, but if there's demand for more demos..."

“Oh, perfect!” 
To the sutras: “El is making you such a cool chest.”

Pet pet pet the sutras. (Pet pet pet the mouse, which she has convinced to stay in her pocket with a pizza crust.)

"Anyway, priority one is getting the walls fixed before mals swarm the school, but if it's possible, priority two is to bleed off some of the mals in the graduation hall single-file so's they're easier to kill than all in a giant mob."

"I guess this is rather what we signed up for when we agreed to be allies with you of all people."

"Don't pretend you didn't know what you were getting into," Lucia says cheerfully. "Anyway, the more mals I kill, the more mana we'll have for graduation." 

"Till you fill up all my crystals, which you will probably accomplish by November if not sooner."

"Well, we have bones now, I'll do the beads thing."

"Make lots and lots of beads. --Anyway--being in an alliance with me means dealing with my harebrained priorities. But me being in an alliance means that you guys get to veto any plans you aren't satisfied aren't stupid. Even if I don't actually go 'okay yeah' when you voice your objections."

"Just don't try to sleep in the hallway."

"I won't." She considers following this up with 'cross my heart,' but the implicit second line would be, uh, stupid, in the Scholomance, so she doesn't. Instead she says, "You're thinking of doing the demo in shop, right? When?"