"First - thank you for taking care of that... Little problem."

"Not so little."

"Very large and pressing problem, then."

"You're welcome."

Grin! "And there was another large and pressing problem I'd wanted to ask your help with..."

"What's that?"

"The graduation hall," she says, more solemnly. "And fixing it to be less dangerous for both our years."

"...This had better be a damn good plan."

"About as good as it can get when we're talking going into the hall early. But - I'll accept feedback and refinement. And we're going to need to involve a significant fraction of the school regardless."

Hn. "All right..."

"I'm going to need to involve at minimum London on specifics, but - we should be able to repair the cleansing machinery for the graduation hall. It'll last a few years likely, even without extra maintenance - and perhaps the other students can extend that by a few more years. It'd help my year and yours at minimum, likely also the current freshmen."

"Ambitious. You want us for protection."

"And faith that this can be done."

"How so?"

"People have tried to repair the machinery before. They usually fail, and even when they succeed it doesn't last."

"But the two of you - and Shanghai - have boldly and recently done something impossible. Something that most fail at. If we say this can be done, and if I place myself and you place yourselves on the team - that's confidence for those who come along, and we need the best here, not the most desperate. We need those who would have a good chance even if they left the rest to rot - so we need to convince them that walking into the graduation hall early and nearly alone will work, will be worth the risk."

"And the belief of the rest of the school might affect things, too - it affects us if we walk alone into the dark, whether others expect us to come back. And if they expect us to return triumphant - we just might."

Bleah. El glances at Lu to get a sense of her feelings.

...She has a somewhat uncomfortably strong desire to go into the graduation hall and fight. It sounds exciting like very few things that don't involve El (or now Dani) ever do. 

...They don't get to cut loose a lot, or at all honestly. 

...Also she genuinely wants to make things better for everyone else, make the graduation hall safer - and this will help Jialin too, who's... Wonderful and also not really getting a lasting benefit from swearing herself to El. 

"We're in."

Good.

"When are you going to announce this?"

"Over dinner - ideally I'll be able to talk to the other major enclaves first. London especially."

"Should we be seen to volunteer or will our participation be part of your presentation?"

Hum. "Might work better if you volunteer - and I'll see if I can arrange for 'spontaneous' offers of positions from enclaves... Shanghai will be offering a guaranteed seat to any volunteers - I might convince others to do the same."

"That'll get the indies. Hopefully enough of the smarter ones."

"The indies are, in all honesty, often better wizards than the enclavers. They don't have an easy road before them. The best thing the enclaves can provide us is mana."