Bella doesn't even have a tray yet but the sign is very arresting. "No kidding?"

"The genuine article! Five days guaranteed, actual duration somewhere between five and ten. Retention is good after the effects wear off, better if you rehearse the material that day. Going rate is six mana-hours a pop, a mana-hour is approximately one average freshman doing exercise or math problems or Codenames for one hour, I tested it back home because we need a measurable currency in this place - " he places a small glass bead on the table "- I also take spells and enchanted stuff and specific favors and occasionally suggestions. This is as cheap as they'll ever be, by the way, I've got to wow people with 'em before I start jacking up the price." 

"Jesus. Can I dibs one for after I've gotten six hours worth of math problems to do? I've got Econ in Mandarin and also geometry today, it might add up to enough by this evening. Do they have a good shelf life?"

"Shelf life is terrible, unfortunately, but they'll keep 24 hours. I plan to sell a new batch every ten days or so." 

"This batch is 24 hours from when, then?"

"About an hour ago. It's a rough estimate, I wouldn't necessarily trust them at 6:55 tomorrow. To be more specific, the efficacy decays a little bit over the day but starts to drop off sharply at the 24-hour mark. Mostly the duration suffers." 

"Okay. So if I go ask the sophomore from my enclave to spot me the mana and I drink it now it'll be better?"

"Little bit. Basically you'd get the benefit of the effect for your classes today, without much effect on the endpoint. But if you drank it at noon tomorrow, you'd be lucky to get two days." 

"I'll be right back." She sprints after Suze. "Suze! Suuuuuze!"

A boy with a power-sharer who's been eavesdropping walks up. "I'd like," he does some brief mental calculations, "five, please."

There goes a lass who knows a good opportunity when she sees one. He takes advantage of the pause to snag some hash browns. 

The newcomer catches him mid-mouthful. He takes a moment to swallow. "You heard the part about the shelf life, right? Don't wanna defraud my customers on the first sale." 

"It's not for the next twenty-five to fifty days, it's for every freshman in my enclave."

"Neat, we have a deal. If you have any problems let me know, they've been tested plenty back home but Scholomance will Scholomance."  

"That it will."

He draws out the mana to pay for the potions.

He proffers his power sharer and pulls five vials from the tray. "Pleasure doing business with you. What's your enclave, by the way?" 

"Atlanta. Yours?"

Bella races back somewhat fuller. "I have to pay her back with interest but I'm going to call it worthwhile if these work and tell everybody in the school if they don't," she informs Alexius.

"Jacksonville." He can't call it a nonclave with the juniors watching, they'll get offended. He just thinks it. 

To Bella: "Interest, huh? Maybe I should take a leaf out of Suze's book and start a mana bank. And yeah, totally understand. I drank one this morning first thing, so if they don't work I'll be mighty surprised." He cheerily hands over a vial in exchange for six MH. 

"Say when, I'm not used to mana hours as a standard," she says, and she forks it over. "She just doesn't want me to get in the habit of leaning on her past the first week or so."

"That's because I just invented them. Somebody had to." He holds the glass bead in one hand while he proffers the power sharer with the other, makes a face like he's calculating, and after approximately six hours' worth of effort have poured through, "aaaand done. Sounds like Suze's on the right track, but I was being serious. If an enclave loans mana to someone they have a vested interest in their survival, see? Win-win." 

"I mean, I'm pretty sure Suze doesn't hate me and want me to die anyway, but I guess owing her mana can't hurt, sure."

"Oh no, I didn't mean it that way. Just that mentioning interest gave me a real idea. I meant the not-leaning-on-her bit was good, too." 

"Please do not become some kind of mana loan shark. Although I guess it wouldn't be that bad compared to financial loan sharking, since mana generation goes up over time?"

"You know, that was my next thought, how does one disincentivize loan sharking? Know any budding economists over in the...enclave whose name I never asked?" 

He sticks out a hand. "Alexius Marcus, by the way. Affinity: me." 

"Bella Swan, metamagic." Handshake. "I'm going to take intro econ after I eat - whiiiich I should do, but I might sit here?"

"Metamagic, oooh. I have so many questions. But sure, you're welcome to join if you don't mind me impolitely stopping conversation to hawk my wares from time to time. Be nice if you could snag some eggs while you're at it, but I legit won't take it as a snub if you don't." 

He's aware this is sort of vaguely alliance-suggesting, but not particularly fussed about it. It's only Day 2 and they're freshmen, and also subtext can hang itself. 

"I'll see what they have in the way of eggs."

Off she goes.

After a glance about for potential customers (or mals), he digs into his hash browns. One table over, a junior skewers a five-legged frog-thing that was making a beeline for Potion Table. Alexius waves in thanks. 

Bella's back later with a tray full of French toast and orange juice for her and a dollop of eggs for him.

Eggs! "Awesome, thank you." He digs in. 

Eventually: "So, metamagic. Enlighten me. Changing spell parameters? Ranges, durations, targets? Powering spells? Cheapening spells?" 

"Some of that, but more countering spells, disenchanting items, debugging spells that aren't quite where their authors mean for them to wind up. I'm good at circle casting but not by that much more than most people who've practiced it."

Not as much synergy as he might hope, but... "Got anything on potions?" 

"I don't know yet what it'll do there, New Orleans isn't heavy on the alchemy and I was trying to cram Mandarin so I didn't look into it as hard as I could have. I'll see what happens in lab."

That's not completely unpromising. "My affinity gives me a lot of personal spells and makes 'em cheaper to cast and maintain, but if I want to do anything to anything that isn't me, I pay a premium. I can brew decent potions if I drink 'em immediately after brewing, and actually benefit therefrom. Hence the ten-day cycle on these." He gestures towards the tray. "They last the full ten for me. The dose always comes out just right for me, but a crapshoot for everyone else." 

"Huh! It's possible that I could eventually figure something out to redirect that for a given potion but I would bet dollars to donuts it's not already in circulation. But I'm creative writing so."

"Yeah, see, that's what I was thinking when you said metamagic. If you can find a way to make my spells think someone else is me, suddenly we're a star buffing team. Similar for the potions, which may or may not be easier, I've never worked with a metamage before. I do plan to recruit some more alchemists, later, to brew larger batches in exchange for a cut of sales." 

"Very enterprising. I am willing to sink a fair amount of work into a steady supply of eidetic memory potions."

A girl in a silk shirt with a ruby-twinkling bracelet on her wrist, (doesn't look like a power sharer, more like something for storage) comes over as well.

"I've got enchanted items and luxuries for trade. Shielding, blasting, endurance and mana storage bracelets - bracelets are my affinity - and chocolate and gummies and spices and good silk clothing. Any of that you'd be interested in?"

Oh hey it's Lily. "I'll take a shielding bracelet, please. Do they come in different flavors? And I will gladly repeat this trade when I mix a new batch in ten days, even after the price goes up." If I'm still alive, of course...

To Bella: "Yep, that's the hope. Some of the ingredients are a bit challenging, I got lucky in yesterday's supply run and brought a few ingredients of my own to start me off. I'm banking on people like you to notice the value and trade for more of what I need." 

"Only aesthetically. I've got black and hematite, bronze and tigerseye, and copper and malachite." She fishes in her pack and shows examples. "All of them are good for enhancing your choice of hex, pretty broad-spectrum compatibility, best with explosive or incendiary ones."

"What's the ingredient list?"

"Life-saving and fashionable," he admires them a moment. "I'll take the bronze. I don't suppose they do mana efficiency as well?" 

And, "mercury base, dash of silver, bismuth, powdered fluorite and lapis, plus carnelian if I brew it. And a handful of common reagents. I need 'em all in bulk if I want to do this regularly, especially the mercury." 

Bella writes it all down. "I have lab first thing Tuesday so I should be okay at getting stuff."

"I've been working on a channeling design but it's been difficult. I'll let you know if I've made progress when I come back in ten days."

"Neat. Either of you interested in swapping spells? I tend to accumulate personal ones."

"Sure. What've you got? I have a generic counterspell and a thing in Spanish for setting mals alight and the commonest Mandarin wake-up ward, which I think is a bit better than the English but I have that too, and a French mind-ward."

"I'm good on wake-up wards. Got a bunch of languages, but in the ones you mentioned so far...several concealment variants in Spanish, one to staunch bleeding and oxygenate blood in Mandarin, a couple stimulants and gut microbiome tweaks in English, slightly faster thinking in Mandarin, contraception in French, movement speed in French and reflexes in English that I got from Angie, and English spells for an ice spike and cold resistance from Hira. Oh, and strength in Mandarin, and different speed and reflex spells in English. Yolanda Park has an affinity for self-buffing and we are going to be best friends. I'm also curious how my Russian mind ward stacks up against your French one." His affinity tends to make subtle mind magic slide off him, but powerful spells are still a threat. 

"I don't have Russian and wasn't planning on doing it soon but if yours is better maybe it's worth it just for that. The faster thinking one sounds lovely."

"It's only about ten percent or so but it does last a few hours. Good for studying. Gotta be careful not to abuse it, though, it can have side effects roughly akin to a bad hangover if used two or three times in a row. I kind of want the generic counterspell, even if it's out-of-affinity, just for the utility...I wonder if it would work especially well if what I'm countering is targeting me? Have to test it, I suppose. Trade?" 

"Sure thing." She writes out her counterspell. It's in modern if florid English, and it's short but one of those ones where you need to identify and mention and rhyme with whatever you're countering; she has a little flowchart for it which she supplies under the basic incantation and gesture (a triangle made with both thumbs and forefingers).

Hmmm. Not really his strong suit but it's a counterspell, so sure. The Mandarin thinkspell is a bit longer and involves some repetition; he writes it out in careful penstrokes and trades it over. "Does it work on active magic?" Maybe he can use it to end one of his own spells early if they're somehow inconvenient. 

"Yes, that's when it works best, no-selling something somebody else has just cast. If you undershoot the counterspell mana compared to what they're putting in - you don't need to match it but you need like forty percent - then it'll leave extra bits uncountered but still get a chunk of it."

"Sorry, I meant ongoing magic. That's handy, though, if you're quick enough." With his affinity working against him there it'd probably cost him more mana than the target spell, but that could be worth it, and he might just be fast enough with all the boosts he can in theory layer on.

"I have a different thing for disenchanting artifice but I wrote it myself and it doesn't work very well yet. I don't have anything for dismissing a persistent effect that isn't an artifice but I can see why you'd want one, if you can't usually dismiss your own spells on yourself? I'll put it on my list of ideas for composition."

"I can sometimes coax them into ending early, and ones with variable duration tend to cooperate with what I want of them, but yes, outright dismissal is a work in progress. It's not a huge problem because I generally want more good things, not fewer, but having a bit more options to control the more dangerous ones is always nice." 

"I'll see what I can do." She has a list of composition ideas already with several items on it and adds this one, writing at half the height of the lines in the notebook.

"And do please let me know if you find a way to tweak that potion to behave for everybody. I can add a disclaimer to my fine print, 'for best effect, take with bribed Bella.'" 

"Ha! I already drank the first one but next time maybe I will have some suitable way to analyze it."

"I suppose I could invite you to watch me brew it if you promise not to memorize and sell the recipe. Once I start recruiting other alchemists the cat will be out of the cauldron, of course, but by then I hope to have plenty of other wares on offer." 

"I'm not nearly alchemist enough to watch a brew and make it myself after that and then drink the results when it's got a mercury base but I would be happy to have a look and see if it can be nudged."

"Nudging would be the idea, yes." Eidetic memory would go a long way toward letting an experienced alchemist poach his recipe, but he supposes she wouldn't have eidetic at the time if it's ten days after his last batch. He can't completely rely on her being an inexperienced alchemist, alas, but it's enough. "Unless something truly momentous throws off my plans, I'll start the next batch on Monday the 13th just after curfew ends." 

"Before breakfast? That's early. And... dangerous."

Hmmm. "It's not too bad this early in the year, but yes, it's gonna get worse over time. My original plan called for securing some additional malwatching in exchange for potions" he nods towards the vigilant juniors, "but now that I've made my impression at breakfast, I suppose I could shift the brewing to before dinner instead and save risk that way. If others are going to be reluctant to work early in the morning, so much the more reason to switch. I'd have to go a few hours without eidetic memory, but I can deal." 

"Before dinner I am much less reluctant! Though ideally it'd be more than a two-person party."

"The malwatching service is still on the table. And maybe some folks from my supply run group will want to join in exchange for early potions. Not gonna take any more risks than I have to, I need my full attention on the brewing." 

"I can ask Suze but I don't really see her going for it, truth be told. - I met a Boston girl who might be all over it, though."

"I do love meeting new people." There have been a surprising number of non-assholes in the freshman class, it's refreshing. 

"I don't see her right now, there's just, fucking thousands of people in here, but I'll try to sit next to her in Maleficaria Studies and I can bring it up then."

"You were asking about spells? I've got a French force spike one for mal-killing or use as an awl or knife - it's variable-feed and focusses all the power on a tiny area. A French force shield one for combat, which synergizes with the force spike one, an Old English poison detector, a Mandarin rip-apart hex that detonates if you give it enough power, the standard English wake-up ward, and an English/French bilingual keep-awake developed by my older sister Rose that's good enough to substitute completely for an hour of sleep each night for a month, or for up to three all-nighters if you need it all at once. It hurts after you're past eight hours sleep debt, and has progressively worse backlash past sixteen. It's more gentle if you stretch it."

"Well, we do have ten days." 

To Lily: "The keep-awake dovetails nicely with my affinity, that'd be my first choice. I bet Yolanda would jump on it too, if you offered. I'd like the force shield and maybe the spike as well. Hear anything from my list that you'd like? If you have Latin or Greek I've got a few more." 

"I like the sound of the keep-awake if you want any of mine."

"I don't have Latin yet but I'm going to be learning it, so I'd be interested in your Latin selection. Of what you've said so far I'm most interested in the mind ward and the slightly faster thinking."

She looks over at Bella. "I'd trade for your counterspell."

She copies out the flowchart again.

Lily writes out a four-verse alternating french/english poem that only rhymes if you pronounce it in quebecois on a piece of her graph paper, and snips it off with her scissors. "Here you go."

Shannon is in a pretty good mood when she reaches the cafeteria; even the sad, picked-over state of the food lineup isn't enough to touch her cheerfulness. She has ALCHEMY LAB on her schedule! 

Marcy seems to be at the Boston enclave table, which is scary, but - ooh, there's Bella! Shannon wanders over. "Hey." 

"Mind ward for wakefulness, thinkfast for force shield, and...for the force spike, I have on offer in Latin: solidifying incorporeal mals, fast-cast but mana-intensive skin-toughening, generic personal antitoxin, hair-growing, tooth-growing, a few other minor body mods, and the envelope shield I used during our supply run. That last one I'd like a bit more for, it's my favorite." 

Oh, another potential customer. He smiles at the new arrival. 

"Hi Shannon! - I just realized I was so excited about the potions I didn't ask anybody's names, I'm sorry!"

The new potential customer smiles a bit nervously at him. "Hi! I'm Shannon, from Vancouver." 

"Alexius Marcus, some generous souls append 'the Great', affinity for the self, Jacksonville. Purveyor of fine spells and potions. Pleasure to meet you, Shannon." 

"I'd like the incorporeal solidifier, please. And my name is Isabel Lillian Amber, but I go by Lily."

“Huh, affinity for the self? That’s not one I‘ve heard before! What do your potions do?”

Alexius writes down his swap-spells for Lily. "Good choice." 

"These potions in particular will give you eidetic memory for five to ten days with no side effects, with good retention that gets better if you study right after the effects wear off. I make them in as large a batch as I can every ten days, I always get the maximum duration myself but my affinity doesn't do squat unless I actually drink and benefit from what I brew. Currently going for six mana-hours apiece, or make me an offer. Mana-hours are approximately one hour of an average freshman's mana-building effort, as measured by a bunch of teenagers in Jacksonvile a while back. It's cheap as these things go because I'm trying to impress people, it'll go up later. Lily here has banked some credit because her shielding bracelet is nice." He pats the bronze-and-tigerseye affectionately. 

Lily's pet maleficer is sitting two tables away STARING in between devouring the cafeteria food with obvious delight. 

"Do you reckon your friend over there is going to actually attend any of the classes you read to him?" murmurs Bella.

"I don't expect so. They have him down for basic literacy. I considered doing his homework for him since it would be easy, but then I remembered he would have to copy it out longhand. Which would require him to actually know how to write. So..." 

She leaves the implied disaster unspoken.

"Plus it would be a lot of outlay for a... dubious asset, like, I don't want the kid to die but there have got to be people it's cheaper to save."

"Yes."

Alexius overhears this, and yikes. There are unprepared freshmen but illiterate and truant is a new standard of fucked. "He could trade me for a potion maybe? That won't do enough in only a week but it would help. Or you could, I did say you have credit with the bracelet, and get him to pay you back. Then again, if he doesn't even plan to attend I don't see how even permanent eidetic memory would do the trick." He wants to ask more but there's a potential customer to butter up so it'll have to wait. 

Would Shannon like to barter for a potion...?

"I'd rather save the credit for myself, thank you. I don't think any amount of potions will cure his attitude."

Eidetic memory potions, hmm? How would that interact with meditation mana generation? Might be good, might make it less effective... he could just exercise, being in better shape is valuable anyway. Also, interesting indies and possible minor enclave. 

"Memory potions? Did I miss the detailed pitch?"

"I should have handy little instruction cards, shouldn't I. Maybe once the price goes up." He repeats his description of the potion's effects. "I'm Alexius Marcus, by the way." 

"Theun Jansen. You ever do meditation for mana? I think this will either make it substantially more effective or substantially less, not sure which."

"I've never gotten a lot out of it. I don't think the eidetic memory actually matters that much, though? It might be distracting at first but you should acclimate quickly. I did, however, discover that sufficiently difficult card games and such work nearly as well as exercise, and some remain just as difficult when you can count cards. This weekend I'm going to try snagging a library or reasonably safe empty classroom for group poker, Codenames, Mao, and such." 

"Oooh. I owe Suze and can pace and embroider when I'm stuck in my room."

"Interesting! I don't think I can offer a reading room, but if I remember Mao right you might be able to interest some of this year's Boston crop, they could offer it."

"I'll reach out. They probably have a deck of cards already but I can trade use of the Codenames notecards I'm going to make. 

"I got a stupidly high mana rate the first time I played Mao, at least until I ragequit. It's perfect for newbies and builds character." 

"Character. Yes. Definitely not 'obnoxious trolling', that would be undignified." (Theun is now pretty sure he is remembering the right game.)

"The graduates said so, it must be true. Builds the ability to tolerate intense frustration, at least. You interested in a potion, Theun? I've also been doing a fairly brisk trade in personal spells." 

"Oh my god you play Mao? I love that game! Couldn't justify a pack of cards for it, I don't get as good a rate off it as situps, but I would love to play."

"I am, but six hours would drain me to the dregs at the moment. Any types of spell you'd be interested in trade?"

"Sadly I hate Mao, but that's kind of the point. I will absolutely invite you, and maybe it'll grow on me after I use it to mana grind for a while. Fun things can still be hard, after all, hence the other games. I expect poker might be a hit, too, with this crowd." And maybe he can win some mana off the other enclavers if it gets popular. He's actually decent at poker. 

To Theun: "Hmmm. Just about any kind of personal buff or boost is good for me. I'm a bit shy of reasonably cheap ranged attacks, they aren't my usual fare but they're good to have...Memory? Immune booster? Resilience?" 

"Hmm, not my go-tos, but I have others... What languages?"

He pulls out his personal spellbook and flips through. "Oh, I also know a pretty quick artifice to make a book only open for the owner. Needs a bit of your involvement, but the basic lock that a strong senior could overpower I could get done in work period today. Books are my affinity."

"Ooh."

"I have English, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit, and six of those are the potion. That's a handy affinity, I like it. I would totally trade a potion for a book ward. I warn you, though, I am shit at artificing." 

"No worries, it's basically just 'hey, spell, have a taste of this guy's mana so you know who to look for' and a one-line incantation. Meet you at lunch and trade then?"

"Sure! Here, have the potion now, that way you've got the memory for morning classes if you want it. Shelf life ain't great so drink it soon." And if he stiffs Alexius at lunch, well, Alexius knows not to trust him next time. 

Shannon has mostly been listening quietly to this conversation. She knows that she's supposed to be meeting people and making a good first impression, but this group is really intimidating and she feels like everyone here is several times cooler and more interesting than her. She also doesn't exactly have anything she could trade.

"...I'm interested but I don't have much I could trade for it right now," she admits. "Once I get alchemy supplies I'll be able to brew a potion I have for mouthwash that keeps your teeth in perfect condition without having to brush them. Maybe I can get in on your next batch?" 

It's slightly tempting to beg Raleigh for a favour so she can get it now, it sounds GREAT and she's almost certain Raleigh would get it for her, but also that would be really embarrassing. 

"- that's a really good potion concept. Does it taste awful or what?"

"I agree, that'd be a good trade. How long does a given mouthwash container last?" 

"If you're fine trusting my word, sounds good," he replies to Alexius. He drinks it now, not much sense in waiting if it's going to go bad. Asking the first girl about a ward can wait anyway.

"You only need about a teaspoon each time, and using it once a week should keep you covered, so a bottle lasts a pretty long time. It...doesn't taste worse than normal mouthwash? But I hate normal mouthwash so, I don't know. I can flavour it if you have the ingredients for that." 

"Not worse than normal mouthwash is fine," Bella assures her. "I'd like some, I brought toothbrushes but would rather have to fuss about using them less frequently."

"Yeah, sounds like a real time-saver. I should be selling the next batch on Monday the 13th at dinner, hit me up." 

The potion: works. It takes a bit to notice the sharper memory as it fades in, but it does. 

Angie shows up to the table on her own at this point, wandering over from one not too far off where Zed is half passed out in their mediocre breakfast and Alexei is switching between watching her, them, and the room around them like a good paranoid with a compromised clavemate.

She stands nearby to wait for an opening, and then, "Morning, Alexius," not a good morning but certainly a morning, somewhere, "Were you up all night doing this?" 

Zzzzz.

"Morning indeed. I suppose I could claim I just whipped it up before homeroom, make myself look even more a prodigy, and get immediately called on my bullshit...yes, in fact, but most of that time was setting up a makeshift brewery in my room. Good thing stimulant spells like me." Oh, he should do introductions. "This is Theun, book specialist, was offering a neat owner-recognizing book ward; Bella, who does metamagic and has excellent taste in breakfast companions; and Shannon, whose tooth-preserving mouthwashes we were just discussing. Everyone, this is Angie, she traded me those wonderful speed and reflex spells." Well, her and Yolanda, he supposes. One can't have too many buff spells. 

"Book wards, tooth preserving mouthwash, and metamagic, you attract all sorts of interesting people. I suppose it only makes sense, those potions of yours are going to go fast. Speaking of, you were going to set one aside for Zed, yes? They're still waking up, but I'll bring it to them. We'll be doing another run down to the supply rooms sometime next week, too, if you want in on that?" 

He hands her a vial from the tray's dwindling supply. "For Zed, with my compliments. We did talk about doing a regular potions-for-supplies trade, didn't we? I think I could afford to keep you three in potions for what Zed's doing. Unfortunately I can't do the trade the day of, since these potions don't keep that long. But I can do two more now or three from the next batch in exchange for the supply run support?" Based on yesterday's results, Zed's spell and Alexei's vigilance are definitely worth three potions. He runs through the disclaimers again - 24 hour shelf life so drink it fast, five to ten days' effect, study after it wears off, and it only works on stuff you learn whilst empotioned. 

Hmm, "One more now, and two from the next batch," she counters. Her visual memory has not gotten any worse in the past twelve hours, even if it isn't quite eidetic. She might take one sometime if she ever needs to cram a language, but she isn't even language track. 

"Deal." He hands over a second vial, then has to pause to negotiate with a pair of interested sophomores. Yes, they really are eidetic memory potions, here's how they work, yes, he noticed they were from a prestigious enclave, no, he is not dropping his already rock-bottom prices, mana is cheaper for them then for freshmen, great, thanks, pleasure doing business with you. 

Angie heads back to her table while he does that, poking Zed upright enough to drink their potion, and pressing Alexei's on him while ignoring any arguments he might be trying to make that she ought to drink it. If he's talking his mouth is open for her to pour a potion down, ha. 

She comes back once that's done with and her clavemates are adjusted enough to the way the world looks when it stays put in your head. Once the sophomores are out of the way, she gets to the planning portion of the transaction.

"I think the best time might be Tuesday after classes, we all three have the same class together then, and you?" Supplies should not be so depleted then, but the supply of mals will hopefully be moreso. "We'll start with artifice supplies and work our way up, while there's still some students about. Sara will be down there already, she has a shop class last period Tuesday," she adds. 

"Works for me. I have Materials Identification last thing Tuesday, should be in the area." 

"If you're closer to Shop 197 than the classrooms on the fourth floor I'd suggest going down there rather than waiting on us, it might take us a full fifteen minutes to get down all those stairs. At least Sara should have a couple other juniors with her, she said she was going to pull some in to show the spell off to." Hopefully no more than two, though, and paying well for the privilege - the more people along the more the spell costs. The exposure was probably worth the cost yesterday, but there definitely won't be any more freebies. 

"Convenient. I'd appreciate it if you'd let Sara know to expect me." 

"Will do!" She wiggles her fingers in a little wave, "See you in mal studies." Even if they won't be saying hi during it, unless he sits by them for some reason. 

Off she goes back to her table. 

"I'd better go as well. See you around!"

"It's about that time. Bella, you were interested in the book ward, do you have a preferred time to talk more?"

"Catch me during or after lunch."

"Sounds good, I'll make time before I make Alexius's."

"See you later, and stay safe." Alexius waves to the departing students. "Shannon, you're welcome to stick around if you like." 

An older enclaver wanders over, managing to look simultaneously bored and intrigued. Alexius digs into his favorite breakfast combo platter, hash browns and haggling. 

Shannon is going to sit quietly nearby, studying a book she got from the void last night in a way that will hopefully make it look like she's busy and doing important work rather than like she's a hanger-on. 

Hmmm, no customers in the immediate vicinity, Bella seems occupied, Shannon looks like she's busy and doing important work...

Alexius finishes his hash browns, at long last.