The nicest thing about graduation, Bea thinks, is that in the brief window after breakfast and before the flames burn through, most of the mals are migrating down to the graduation hall. So it's possible to let one's guard down slightly more than usual and not feel too bad about it. And if you go two to a room instead of separately to wait for the cleansing to finish... it's not like curfew's being enforced.
El still hasn't let go of Jialin, and positions the girl in her lap as they sit.
"I used it to change the rules. A way to get my spells inside the mawmouth, without having to go through its hide."
Right. "How permanent do you think the damage to the course is?"
Shrug. "Dunno. Depends what the mawmouth did on the way in and if the school is smart enough to recast before the scheduled time."
"We'll have to check it..." She frowns, troubled. "That's two mawmouths that've gotten through the wards now."
To El: "Your spell - that looked a lot easier, was definitely quicker than the first time. Can you - simplify it? Make it something other people can use?" Possibly that wouldn't destroy a significant chunk of the building.
"I would have to spend some time thinking about it." Probably consult the Golden Stone Sutras, there were some correspondences, in retrospect. "Not sure it'd come out cheap. Or easy."
"...We're going to need to set up a way for you to respond quickly to emergencies like that, if it'll keep happening and if no one else can respond."
"And we'll need to think about - what if this continues in future years. Even one mawmouth a year..."
"Finding maintenance track kids willing to go looking for mawmouth holes with us might be difficult."