It's a short poem and she's added that it only works on food and beverages, not contact poisons or venoms.

“D you think much of the cafeteria’s offerings are contaminated enough to use as a target, or should I try spiking a protein shake with bleach?”

"I would expect it to ping on those baked potatoes. Though you need to be pretty close. I can go get you one."

It is a pity Kareen couldn’t afford the power that makes you immune to poison but oh well, the cafeteria food was supposed to be really bad anyway. “That would be convenient, thanks, I’d rather not leave a poison shake lying around looking innocuous.”

"Quite." She goes to the deserted cafeteria table with one of the mana crystals in hand, casts an unsustainable-under-normal-conditions number of spells, and then returns to present Kareen with a baked potato.

Kareen hands over another mana crystal and murmurs the spell over the potato. She beams. “Well, the spell seems to have worked, but not having tried any others I can’t say how comparatively easy it is.”

"I can teach you more spells, what do you want to know how to do?"

Everything More information gathering Neither of those is useful for the experiment at hand.

“Something for mals too incorporeal to just stab?”

"Hard to pull off if you're like a freshman but you are probably not like a freshman." She thinks for a bit. "This one's in-affinity for me, is why I know it, but it'd be hard for you -" Fresh page. Scribble scribble.

She studies it.

It’s not exactly hard to learn, not with Anything You Can Do, but it doesn’t slide into place like a missing puzzle piece the way the other one did.

“Is it dangerous to try to cast without an appropriate target around?”

"It's a waste of mana but you have that overflowing your pockets so no."

She casts. Even though it doesn’t really do anything, there’s still an effervescent joy to doing magic.

“That was—definitely harder? But it sounds like it would be anyway.”

"Yeah, it would be anyway. Another clue we get is what kinds of spells the void likes to give us - I don't actually know if that will work for you, since you aren't enrolled, but if I ask my void for something to spellcheck my homework I'll get a way to borrow the same part of the school magic that grades the assignment and Caio will get a recipe for magic ink."

“I assume there’s void other places than the library ceiling.”

"All our bedrooms open onto it."

“Do you only ask the void for things in your bedrooms? I suppose that would generally be more convenient than asking the library ceiling for things…can you ask for spells in other people’s rooms?”

"Yes, we can ask for spells in other people's rooms, but that might run off the enrollment still, the school isn't going to forget who I am because I'm visiting Caio or Kanimir and studying with them. I think the library ceiling does not in fact have this function, you're supposed to find books in the library part of the library when you're there..."

“Sensible. I might try it anyway, just on principle, though of course trying someone’s room is the more important test. I expect I’ll get by fine with the library if I can’t make requests, though.”

"And you can ask people for spells, and hold the food hostage if they're trying to be cagey about 'em."

“Pff. I’m not going to do that. Food is a right, not a privilege. I’m very sure I can find things to trade that I wouldn’t automatically give out to everyone no matter what.”

"Whatever that might be, sure. Though you could conceivably get tired of being an automat at every meal, especially if you're up all night fighting every mal in the school."

“Admittedly being an automat is less important than it would be if it hadn’t been established that there are spells to illusion the cafeteria food more thoroughly and I weren’t able to dispense mana as profligately as food.”

"That's true. Any minute now it will occur to Aadhya that she can illusion up her grandmother's cauliflower thing with the free full Radiant Mind crystals. We can do quite well for ourselves with enough mana, really - a main reason enclavers have it better is that we have power sharers, so whoever's running surplus can cover for emergencies and the people who had the emergencies can pay it back later when they survive their emergency. Though New Orleans actually just got ours, we're a very small enclave and I didn't have this for my first two years." She indicates her sharer.

“Good! Maybe we can get the death rate down to zero.”

"So, in the graduation hall in addition to a menagerie of horrible things there are maw-mouths, which do not, in fact, kill people, they just absorb them and have them forever."