"I'll be sure to ask."

Any other initial ideas for who they should talk to at first? 

...Shanghai owes them a favor, too.

...A pretty big one. 

Might need to think a little more carefully on how to cash that one in, though.

And about what'll happen once they're out... Xunyu seems much less - mysteriously in control of everything than her sister, at least. 

For now, anyway.

Shanghai might have more interest than London in attaching other projects to their reputation, too.

Which will mean they'd want firmer attachments.

Though she doesn't want them taking this over. 

Exactly.

Possibly something Liesel can help with? 

If anyone could...

They can talk to her first, then. 

Sounds like a plan.

Enough to be starting with. 

Time to face up to the day.

Unfortunate, that. 

So it is.

It is really nice having their classes together, though, even if that means they're leaving breakfast to head to the deeper parts of the school - it's their ridiculous Advanced Philosophy of Magic class, at least, that they share with both Shinta and Liesel (they're not the only ones in that class, though - there's Hu Zixuan from Shanghai, most notably, and a few of the other people who think they can challenge Liesel or Zixuan for valedictorian). It gets attacked a lot by mals, especially the tougher ones Lu and El might struggle with on their own. 

Notably, a room full of valedictorian candidates, plus the two scariest people in the school, is not exactly a soft target for mals. Some of the students think the attacks are secretly pop quizzes. (A disproportionate number of the mals get killed by Shinta anyways, given she brings her machine gun - plus now a handgun that's even faster on the draw - with her everywhere and has good reflexes. Bullets are a lot faster than incantations.)

It's.... suspicious that those tough mals find them in this slot particularly. Given the things they've been talking about recently.

Very much so. 

Suppose the question is, what if anything can they do about it?

...She's not sure. The school isn't supposed to be all that intelligent. 

Which is a point that they seem to come back to.