Della is frankly very frustrated with how her schedule turned out, this class included, but on the other hand she still isn’t dead, and she’s written down 108 new names in her notebook of friends and acquaintances since arriving, so really she’s still better off than she expected to be! Hopefully the romantic poetry being discussed will be about the courtship rituals of wheels and axles.

She rollerblades into the classroom and spins around a bit in the process of checking for mals and sits down.

Why is he here. 

"Cool! Rollerblades," he says to Della.

“Thank you so much! I made them myself.”

"Are they magic or are you merely very stylish?"

“Both! I love the fan.”

"If I move it like this"-- he demonstrates-- "it creates a shield."

“I love that! Are you artificing track?”

"Nope. Incantations. But I'm from Shanghai so we have nice things."

“I’m South African! Not from an enclave, lots of nice things regardless. What’s Shanghai like?”

"The city or the enclave? --The city is horribly polluted and the enclave has a very nice garden."

“Either way! - I knew a nice garden by my old house but I can’t imagine it was similar, you must have really different plants and landscaping tastes.”

"Lots of lotuses. Which are also delicious."

“I’ve heard of lotuses but I didn’t know that you could eat them?”