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The only thing that sucks more than the Scholomance is not going to the Scholomance
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"Hmm, I didn't know she liked you back."

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"Alexei, you are an open book, I'm afraid."

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"I was ruthlessly pretending I didn't have any feelings and optimizing for his survival over such petty things as 'kissing him.' Turns out, this is not what he wanted of me."

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Grump.

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He's adorable.

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Nkoyo looks between the three of them but doesn't say anything.

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Cora and Jowani join her at the table shortly.

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Poor grumpy artificer. So grumpy. So adorable. Pet pet pet.

Also there's breakfast, of which she will be eating.

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And as the seniors finish eating and more juniors arrive they get more people interested in Yvette's phase-change spell from the sutras. Alexei has a neat list of everyone who's shown interest and who is going to show up at the demonstration; most graduation alliances are only sending one representative, at his request, so that the room where they'll be holding it won't be packed too full, but it is a lot of graduation alliances that are doing that.

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That's extremely exciting, and also kind of nerve-wracking. Her feel for when she's got a spell down has never been wrong before, but she absolutely has the urge to go reflexively study Sanskrit, just in case. Not that she should appear to be nervous at all. Fortunately, Alexei is right here, and if she's feeling slightly nervous she can actually just. Reach out and touch him, and reassure herself that he's there. For some reason that's very comforting.

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And her first class today is language again so she gets to see whether the school agrees with her that she should learn classical rather than modern Arabic! And a couple of other incanters including Nkoyo and Cora and Liu share the class with her.

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She... gets Sanskrit. Well. Okay, fair enough. Leaving her in a bit of suspense about if her clever plan of doing extra work paid off or not, but. She's fine with this. Sanskrit!

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And history afterwards, which she shares with Liu too.

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Liu's so great!!

... You know, uh. It sure did make her feel so much better to stop constantly playing Scholomance social games with Scorpius, and Alexei. And she has access to her mother's notes on... well, the sorts of magic Liu is doing, but Yvette is not. Responsible maleficing. And clearly Liu is doing it anyway, but as safely as possible, and if someone she likes is going down the path of darkness and despair anyway, she'd... kind of rather she had a guide.

"... I have a book you might want," she ventures to Liu, on the way to history.

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"...what for?" Which is to say, in exchange for what?

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Your sincere friendship and a higher chance of you making it out of here alive?

She can't just open with that, can she.

"I'm not sure, it's kind of... hard to price. Do you want to see it first and then talk about it? After lunch?"

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"...sure..."

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"Okay. I just, um. Think it would help you. Is all."

She shrugs awkwardly.

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She smiles a little bit. "Okay. Thank you."

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Yvette smiles back, and then yep, they can both focus on things that are more straightforward than navigating the complicated sea of interpersonal relationships. History! Whee!

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And they could maybe... sit together? And trade off watching the lecture in chunks while working on their final papers in between. Yvette might be able to notice that Liu is using the translations Yvette provided for her papers, too.

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Yeah! That'd be great, actually. Eee? Eee friendship?? Possibly friendship???

They have the next class together too, so that makes it very easy to just pop over to Yvette's room after lunch, and before Creative Writing.

"So I don't... actually want anything for it," she says, after she's retrieved a nondescript black book from one of her shelves. "It's just the sort of thing that is awkward to try and trade, and I sort of don't, um, trust most people to do good things with it? But I think sitting on knowledge for what it could maybe get me at some point in the future is stupid when you could just..." She huffs out a breath, then offers it to her. "I like you and I want to invest resources into making sure you live? Want to be friends??"

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Liu blinks slowly then looks down at the book and... doesn't take it. "What is it?"

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Wince.

"Um. My mother's how-to guide for. Responsible and sustainable..." she doesn't say the word out loud, just kind of gestures meaningfully. Maleficing. It is her mother's how-to guide for responsible and sustainable maleficing.

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Liu takes a step back. "Why."

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