Sounds good.

Time to get to work, then. 

Yep.

And so their senior year begins.   

El and Luthien's little class of freshmen - especially their Wednesday work period - gets attacked by mals a lot, especially for this early on. Their seminars get attacked a lot, too, especially the ones they have alone or nearly so. They've had rotten luck like this most years, of course, but it seems a bit extra this time. 

Shinta, on the other hand, gets her standard first few weeks - namely, none of the small mals currently spoiled for choice think she's remotely worth bothering with. 

But...

Dani's the only one of their alliance in a position to notice this. 

Shinta isn't the only one getting lucky. 

"Y'know," she says one evening. "The only times I really see mals in the hallways anymore is when I'm going to or from your room."

" - What, really?"

"Any that are worth mentioning, yeah. Maybe like a skitterbug or something, but that's about it."

"I haven't either, but that's normal."

"It's like they're being herded at me and Lu."

"Think the school's trying to kill you harder than normal?"

"Seems that way, doesn't it."

"I won't let it."

"It doesn't make sense for the school to be trying to kill you, though. I mean, you've helped a lot."

"I've helped the students. The school has it out for us."

"...The school is supposed to be for the students, though."

Snort.

Mrr. Dani doesn't have the right words.

"...If everyone else is being left alone - you two are the most powerful in the school. And I think if the school was genuinely trying to kill you two it'd have opened a pit under your feet straight into the graduation hall."

"What, we're promoted to janitors now?"

"Guards, more like."

"Why now, though?"

"...Don't think we would've survived getting every mal dumped on us sophomore year - and if we've been getting all the mals... There's a lot less than normal."

"Because the graduation hall actually got cleared out."

"Technically, we don't know that for sure..."

"It's not an unreasonable assumption."