"Jerk," Nico retorted, without much heat, pulling herself back upright and wrapping herself in the blanket again. The only other indication that she might agree she had that coming was that she didn't try and kick him in the head again on the way back up. (That, and she would have failed again anyway. Because only one of them was a ninja and it wasn't her.)

They're at a turning point here. She can either stay silent and he'll either respond to her taunt with one of his own or also sit there silently until one of them gets bored. Or she can start up a new topic of conversation.

She dragged her fingernails along the floor again.

"So, you remember how I said I only got magical training a few days before I got dragged here?" she said, not quite daring to look him in the eye. "Well, it was mostly because my multiple-times-great-grandmother was an evil old hag."