"Well, that's what delegating is for."

"Fair." 

She opens the door again. New York guy is still loitering in the vicinity. 

"Aadhya is willing to talk to you. You can come in. I will be present but paying more attention to my Sanskrit than to you." 

This is earlier than Aadhya was expecting, but she'll roll with it! "Evening," Aadhya tells the New Yorker.

"Uh, hi," he says, glancing briefly at Lucia where she's settling cross-legged on the bed with her Sanskrit textbook. "You're Aadhya...Iyer, right?" 

"That's right, and you're John Pratt, what can I do for you?"

"Uh, um, I just came here to remind Lucia that...we understand that what Magnus did crossed the line, and we understand that she's mad, and we all still care about her, but also that if she doesn't come back before graduation we can't carry her letter to her parents this year?"

"Gosh, okay, thanks for letting us know in time to make alternate arrangements, very decent of you!"

"You'd, uh, need to find alternate arrangements that can get to her parents, I think? Most people aren't allowed into New York." 

"It's fine," Lucia says from where she's still intently reading her book, "Mom has an e-mail address, they can just transcribe it." 

"...I guess that works too," Pratt says, deflating slightly. 

"Anything else?" Aadhya asks.

"Um," he glances furtively at El, flinches, and says, "not right now, thanks," and flees the room. 

"Tosser," Lucia says before El can. 

Snort. "I haven't been to the vending machine in a while, anyone feel like making this a picnic?" she proposes.

"Oh, that sounds excellent!" Lucia says brightly. She opens a different drawer in her desk, pulls out seven vending machine tokens, and puts them in one of her various pockets. 

The others go retrieve their own stashes and they can troop down to the machine together.

On the way back up Liu ducks into her room to show them her mice. She has several left, and they look surprisingly healthy.

"Oh, wow, you take such good care of them!" 

Liu blushes a little. "I thought since - I'm not going to be, uh - we could each pick one."

"For familiars?" 

She slowly reaches in to pet one with a finger. 

The mouse sniffs her and puts a tiny paw on her fingertip to get leverage to sit up and sniff more of her.

"Yeah," says Liu.

Oh noooo, it's cute. 

"Liu, may I hug you?" 

"- yes?" says Liu.

HUG. 

Hug! Liu giggles softly.

"They're so cute! I didn't know mice were this cute." 

"These are very tame, too," says Liu, offering a mouse to Aadhya and letting El select one.

The one Lucia first petted is still there after Aadhya and El both have one, so Lucia holds a hand for it to scurry onto, and then holds it up to her face. 

"You and I are going to be such good friends!" she coos to it. 

"Aren't you precious," El coos to her mouse. "It's so soft - Liu have I got a boy or a girl mouse -"

"That one's a girl."