(Pfft, sharing your life story? No.)

"Well, uh, unless this changes for you guys in a butterfly effect way, at the end of our junior year the mals in the graduation hall were in an absolute frenzy, like, a big enough frenzy that if the seniors had graduated normally they would literally have all immediately been torn apart. We went on an insane mission down there, me and Yvette and Alexei and a bunch of senior artificers and incanters, to fix the cleansing fire machines. We... don't know whether it worked. We hope so. Or, they did fix it, but we don't know whether it was enough. Um, and if anything like that does happen, shake Alfie from London for his incantation of refusal and have—El?—lead the casting."

"...If you could go down and back up safely, why didn't you just kill everything? I've been considering sneaking down to the graduation hall for years, but the other New Yorkers threatened to tell my mother on me, and then El pointed out that I could get zapped by the school on my way back up if it mistook me for a normal mal."

"I don't think even I could survive that frenzy. I, uh... some mals did actually slip past me, they'd—" Nope, he does not want to think about anyone who died, nosiree. "Anyway. It was a lot."

"Wow, really? Was there anything shinier than us down there? Did you see a maw-mouth?"

Wince. "Fortitude and Patience were where they always are. No maw-mouth tried to come after us, but after—oh. I don't remember when that happens, but a maw-mouth does climb up to the school. A week and a half before graduation sounds right. I didn't see it but Yvette did and killed it, you know, like a fucking crazy person because apparently she just is that bullshit. And I assume your El is that bullshit, too. But she has PTSD about it. And I don't know if I could've killed it. I can't cast La Main de la Mort. ...and Patience and Fortitude definitely were shinier than us. From a distance."

"Ah. Yeah, that happened. I don't know if El used La Main de la Mort or something else, by the time I got there she was just surrounded by rancid goo and she doesn't talk about it much. I don't know if she has PTSD, though--does Yvette have a set-yourself-right spell." 

"...no, I don't think so?"

"El does. Does that mean Liu still has black fingernails? El was really really out of it after killing the maw-mouth and I ended up shoving a bunch of mana into her in case that helped but oops it was too much and she ended up overcharging the set-yourself-right spell--it can work without any mana at all; with that much put into it it didn't just set her right, it set a bunch of us bystanders so right it cured Liu's maleficing." 

(Why. Why is she like this.)

"My Liu doesn't have black fingernails but I'm not sure she would be happy if I went into any more detail about her than that."

"Fair. I mentioned the black fingernails thing largely because... it was public knowledge. She, like, had them, out and around, and stuff." 

Orion cannot remember if he has a Liu or not. He isn't going to bring this up if he doesn't have to though.

Damn, these are some awkward vibes. Is Atalanta going to try to help smooth them over? Absolutely the fuck not.

Nah this is fine Scorpius is used to it. "Yeah. She wasn't very happy about it, though, so I'm glad yours got to," small smile, "get rid of the nail polish too. Anyway, I'm kind of curious about this set-right spell? What does it do, exactly?"

"...Man, it feels so simple and obvious from the inside, but I'm not sure how to put it into words. It--I want to say, it cuts through all the tangles and shows you your good center, but I'm not actually sure if that makes sense."

"...I'm afraid it doesn't. To me." Another small smile, self-deprecating. "And I'd be surprised if it could actually deal with PTSD but if it helps then—it helps. You can teach it?"

"Yeah. It's so simple it doesn't need mana or even an incantation, but you can use Simple Gifts for it. You just--decide to set yourself right, and it happens." 

She shuts her eyes and sways slightly in place, and sings. 

"'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where you want to be

And when we find ourself in the place just right

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight

When true simplicity is gained

To bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed

To turn, turn, will be our delight

'Till by turning, turning we come round right." 

And she setsherselfright.

Atalanta is so appalled that against her better judgment she blurts, "Is the song about joining a cult strictly necessary??"

"The song about what???"

"It's a Shaker song, as in from the religious sect," Scorpius says, carefully neutral. "But if it works, it works. I have the impression that the spell doesn't actually need the song?" he adds, inflecting it into a question at the end.

"It...doesn't..." Lucia is not LESS CONFUSED. Why would someone object to a song just because it came from a religion. Lots of incantations come from a religion originally. What. 

"It's a religious sect that's had some less than savory practices," he explains, for the benefit of Lucia's unspoken confusion. "I would not... necessarily... call it a cult, but I can see why someone would."

"Man, I don't even know what a Shaker is, I just feel in my soul like that song is telling me to be some old guy's fifth wife and like it."

"I, uh, not to tell you your soul is wrong, but I don't see it."