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"How is your initiation going?" Alice asked, placing her lunch tray down across from Clark and sitting down.

She had begun the habit of eating breakfast and lunch with her brother or her friends, and supper with Hieronymous. There had been some stares at first, but those came mostly from the freshmen, who had not had time to get use to the idea. Donald had confessed to her that most of the student body was hoping that having a wife, or girlfriend, or whatever else she was, would have a calming effect on the normally ill-tempered professor. Apparently Donald and Clark had encouraged this idea themselves, as it gave everyone a convenient reason to accept a relationship between a student and a teacher and they were less likely to be bothered.

Naturally, Hieronymous kept his normal discipline but there were some that insisted that the professor was less prickly when she was around, so her presence was more desirable than it was feared.

It was nice to not be treated like a contagious disease or swamped with embarrassing questions. Alice wondered if Clark was intending to recommend Donald to their grandfather for a job that involved public relations. He would be good at it.

"It's all right," he answered. "About all my senior does is make me get her coffee. She must be addicted to the stuff."

She grinned. "Last year, someone was told to recite poetry to Professor Potsdam. She stopped him, because he was not allowed to disrupt class, but then made him finish it afterwards."

"I'd heard about that," Donald said, sitting down beside Clark. "It was my roommate, Luke. I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it."

"Robert Browning?" Clark asked.

"Alice in Wonderland," she answered.

"Ah," Clark replied. "You would recognize that. It was one of your favorite books when you were younger."

She smiled. "And then I went and fell into the rabbit hole myself."

"And the rest of us are following you down. Say, have you heard from the rest of the family lately? Last week Mom and Dad said something about the AC needing more repairs," Clark said grimly.

Ellen was sitting down next to her. "Is there any particular reason news of your air conditioner sounds so dire?"

"You remember me telling you about how my youngest sister Nancy had started unconsciously using White magic and had her dreams hijacked?" Alice asked, and Ellen nodded.

"The way the local authorities have it set up," Clark started explaining, "is the AC or heater is set to 'break' whenever the wards start to deteriorate, for whatever reason. Then one of the twins calls the 'repair men' and they come fix it. Mom and Dad think that they just have a good warranty for repairs, but the company is just too cheap to replace the whole system."

Ellen frowned. "But shouldn't the wards not need repair that often?"

Alice grimaced. "That's assuming that you don't have someone that is unconsciously using White magic and making a tangle of them. Nancy's age is a problem, she won't be turning five until December, so that would make it difficult to get the time required to train her without Mom and Dad knowing about it. And legally, children under the age of ten cannot be taken away from their parents for the purpose of training unless there is an event that demonstrates 'a clear danger to the child or those that reside in the household.'"

"Thus the occasional ward repair," Clark finished for her.

Donald snorted. "And my family thinks that I have the capacity for trouble."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Embarrassed that my baby sister just might have you beat?"

Donald's mouth dropped and eyes widened in mock horror as he took his yet untouched dull knife from his tray and mimed stabbing himself in the heart. Ellen chuckled at him.

"Anyway," Alice said, rolling her eyes at Donald, "Emma wrote out a letter for Nancy. She says that her dreams are better now, but she has to go outside to play with her invisible friends. Emma and Ethan are apparently keeping a close eye on her, just to make sure that she doesn't fall asleep outside of the house and the wards."

Clark looked at her as if she had just declared the sky to be green. "That sounds unusually responsible of them."

Alice shrugged. "They know that someone has to be, and with Mom and Dad not being able to know about the situation, and the two of us gone, they're the only ones left."

"And Emma probably doesn't want Nancy crawling into her bed, now that she's moved into your room and finally has the place to herself," Clark considered.

Alice grinned. "In all fairness, Nancy does kick."

…..

"What else are you planning on signing up for?" Virginia asked as Alice signed her name at the booth her roommate was attending.

"Just this," Alice said. "If I make Treasurer again, between that and my studies, I won't have a lot of free time."

"Trust me, if you want it, you'll get it," Virginia replied. "And what else are you interested in, Clark?"

"Oh, I might take a look around to see if anything catches my eye," he said, signing his own name.

Virginia shrugged. "Donald is in choir if you're interested."

Clark grinned. "I sound like a stepped on Toad when singing."

Virginia snorted.

"All right, I confess, that was a bad pun," he said. "Shall I stick around until I think of a better one?"

Virginia started laughing and Alice turned around and walked away somewhat confused, unsure if her brother was attempting to flirt or just trying to make her roommate laugh.

It was not as if rooming with someone that was dating her brother would make their room any stranger than it already was. After all, Ellen and Donald had started dating late last year and then had spent most of their summer together. She herself was married to a professor. Virginia thought that she was crazy for spending all the time she did with him socially, but Ellen thought that she just had high standards for intellect and maturity. In the end, they both supported her, whatever her decision might be. If Clark and Virginia got together, well, it would just be par for the course. It was just that she had never thought of her brother as, well, in a relationship with anyone before.

Alice realized that she was not sure what kind of girl her brother would like. He had told her what he did not want, though. As soon as the knowledge that he was Lord Edward Carleton's heir became public, he was sure he would be swamped by fluff-brained socialites whose only ambition was to marry well. While Virginia was not as intellectual as herself or Ellen, her mind was certainly not fluff either. While her family was known in the area, they were considered 'respectable' rather than 'influential.' Alice did doubt that Virginia would make much of a socialite, but her brother's wife would have to be able to play the social game in public.

She guessed that Virginia would smile in public if she had to, and then go find something to blow up in private to recompense.

Alice sighed; she was getting ahead of herself. This was too much analysis for her brother telling her roommate jokes.

She brightened, seeing Minnie at the student government booth, and walked over to see if there was anything she could do to help.