"- 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."

"I am in a mood, yes." 

Her sleeve rides up. Her power-sharer isn't where it usually is. 

"- was the one about you formally renouncing New York true?"

"Nnnnnnnno, not as such, not formally, I just, uh, took off my power sharer and threw it in Magnus's face while calling him a useless leech." 

"But Lucia. Leeches have valid medical applications."

"That's why I had to specify a useless one! I'd've gone for something parasitic but I didn't trust him to be smart enough to know that a tapeworm wasn't a kind of mimic." 

"Fair enough. Then what?"

"Oh, then I stormed off. It was, uh, before that that most of the stuff happened. --I didn't announce plans but I did point out that, between my ability to gather mana and your Golden Stone Sutras, if the two of us wanted to, we could put up as many enclaves as we pleased. After Magnus accused me of not being a team player and I said I would be happy to play on a team if I found one worth playing on, and he wanted to know where I was going to find a team that met my sainted standards, and I said I could build my own. --I want to be really clear that I am not going to try to corner you into anything because my tongue got loose with my temper."

"Well, it's a pretty idea, isn't it, though again you do have to tell me these things."

"...I'm telling you now?"

"We'll see how long it takes me to translate, then, shall we, and hope neither of us dies before then."

"...Yeah." 

She looks like she's chewing on something and trying to decide whether to swallow it or spit it out. 

El is chewing on a pancake. It should not really require this much chewing but them's the breaks.