Fall term finals are coming up. She bombed all her midterms and has just barely been scraping by with passing grades in most of her classes. If she fails — she won't, but if — well. She won't. So it doesn't matter.

Jeremy is slightly pale when he shows up to breakfast.

"What's wrong?"

"Scratcher attack last night. Drove them off, obviously, but I had to burn through most of my spare mana."

"I can give you some of mine. —You can do my Intro to Probability midterm in exchange."

Oh, thank fuck, she doesn't suspect anything. "Yeah, for sure. Can you pay me up front?"

If it were, like, a random person, that would obviously be a bad idea. But he's basically her brother, it's not like he's not going to not do her math final.

"How much do you need?" That would also be a bad idea with a normal person, but she doesn't want him to get killed by a mal or something.

How much can he reasonably ask for? It's not like her final can be that hard, maybe worse than her Remedial Algebra final but not by a lot. "...A week's worth?"

She nods and holds out her hand.

He takes it.

He is suddenly very acutely aware that he could just — tug a bit —

(He doesn't. He's not an idiot.)

She smiles at him and drops her hand. "Let me know if you run low again."

Nod.

She makes it through finals.

Her grades aren't good. If she's being honest with herself, they kind of suck. But she didn't actually fail anything, so it could be worse. Next quarter she is not letting the school put her in two math classes.

But she makes it through.

(She's barely building mana with all the time she's spending on her classes, and she's getting Ds now as a freshman and her classes are only going to get harder, and Jeremy's been acting weird and the weird maleficer kids all hate her and— she's going to make it, she has to make it, some of that might make things harder but it can't mean she's doomed—)

She made it through finals. She'll be fine.

He makes it through finals.

Objectively speaking, most of his classes aren't hard, per se. But every essay takes time, and he's also doing two finals for Briar, and — he knows he needs to be building mana, he knows it's stupid not to —

By the time he reaches the end of finals he has less than half of what Briar gave him.

Jeremy isn't stupid. Deliberately ignoring your situation is a good way to die, and a bad way to do just about anything else.

The fundamental problem, the problem he noticed during fall midterms, is that no amount of being-willing-to-malefice will save him if he gets jumped on the stairs and doesn't have enough mana. If he wants to survive, he needs a plan that's actually sustainable.

It's a risk, to put it mildly. He's tanking his chance at a graduation alliance with an enclave, and especially at an enclave spot afterwards. But his graduation alliance doesn't matter if he dies before he even has the chance to graduate. 

(Briar's going to hate it. He— doesn't care what she thinks. She's barely staying alive. She doesn't get to drag him down with her.)

The third time he pulls malia, he looks at his reflection afterwards and realizes that his pupils are wrong.

He— isn't sure he's ready for everyone to know. Which is a great fucking time to be realizing that, when it's already too late, but it's not like he's going to pull malia from people, that's a great way to die before graduation. 

There's a kid from the Vienna enclave who runs a little shop with all kinds of random things. He knocks on her door first thing in the morning.

"Do you have sunglasses."

"What the fuck."

"I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to trade, do you have sunglasses."

"-yes. Do you have anything to offer me, I'm not taking tainted mana." She doesn't actually know if that would even work but either way she's not going to risk it.

"I have a magically reinforced belt from shop class last quarter— it doesn't do much but it's worth more than non-magical sunglasses."

She is pretty sure that sunglasses are worth more to the creepy maleficer kid than a slightly magic belt is worth to her, but not having to interact with a creepy maleficer kid is worth an awful lot. "Deal. Get the fuck out of my room."