Caio goes home! He has little siblings and they jump on him!

Aww. 

(Seriously WHO has SEVERAL KIDS when MOST OF THEM ARE GOING TO DIE. Well, they are just going to have to FIX THAT.)

Caio is mostly going to be the "look how much you've grown" show for the next while.

Well, that makes sense, on account of how he hasn't seen them in four years because he was away at horrible death school. 

That rift snaps shut too. 

"Thank you so much," says Bella.

"If this had been happening a lot, I'd have gotten a call by now about the unexpected death rate," says Evelyn, "but just in case I'm going to ring up a few people, see what their count this year looks like, if it's very bad I'll be able to tell them the gates were behaving oddly..." She drifts back into the enclave.

She gives a slightly stiff, embarrassed shrug, in response to Bella's thanks. What was she going to do, not help these kids get back to their families?

"That means you're welcome," Lisao translates brightly. 

"Would you have seen it, if anyone else had come through?" he asks quietly. 

"Only if they had landed in Arcadia," Professor Agrippa answers at the same volume.

"Is there a way to find out - given that apparently it looks just like having died -"

"I could try to scry the Scholomance."

"Dooooon't do that, it's supposed to have as few routes in and out as feasible including, like, informationally, some mals can travel that way."

"What, really? How would that...work."

"Some mals are informational. Or psychic or whatever."

"How does information be--I'm not doubting you you understand I just really don't get how that works--"

"I don't have my textbook on me but enclaves have to be careful about internet connections and stuff for this reason, some mals can kind of upload themselves into something not totally unlike a computer virus. And then eat you."

"How do you defend against that? Is it literally just--information airlocks?"

"It's magic, but no spell is perfect, so there is a safety tradeoff with having internet. New Orleans happens to be pro-internet." Bella's still got on her nice shoes but has changed into a large T-shirt from a jazz festival and some sweatpants, neither of which look recently nibbled or exposed to the elements.

"Eesh. --Also when you say 'eat you' do you mean, like, eat your mind or your brain or your whole body like from an outside perspective you suddenly vanish, because one of those is less amenable to available methods of resurrection than the other."

"I believe most informational mals are strictly mana-consumers and leave flesh behind for the scavengers, possibly with some seizure-like brain effects left behind."

"Okay, that's not good, but it's the least worrisome option for people who are not me. --Man I really hope mals can't piggyback off a respawn connection, that'd really suck."

"They probably can't yet but might evolve to do it at any time."

"On the plus side if they start annoying any gods this will at least increase the available firepower in dealing with them."

"Frankly I think we are not going to be limited on firepower with the combined magic systems. I think we should go propose to my yearmate from New York, Orion Lake, who is a ridiculous mal-killing prodigy, that we do a great big honeypot operation fueled by headpats, with him killing stuff with any witches who want to help assisting, and do a couple of those per continent, and then scry for straggling mals."

"...Ooooh, count me in as a witch who wants to help--Jaromira can I borrow your riftblade--"