Bella grins and supervises. The next question is whether those things, too, are hot in themselves - and whether they all add up to the correct amount of hot - but maybe he's got a different idea, or he'll come up with that one himself.

"I'm not sure about this one," he says, tapping 'you're gonna take over the world' with the end of his pen. "I mean, it's true and it's hot and it's obviously related but I'm not sure it's exactly the right thing. You know?"

"Mm-hm," Bella agrees. She thinks, tapping her cheek with one forefinger. "Maybe that I can now take over the world, or that I'm the sort of person who really might, or something about what you think I'll do with it once it is all mine?"

"Would any magic powers do the trick?" Bella laughs. "If I were a Japanese cartoon character and I changed into a frilly costume by saying something like, I don't know, 'luminous star mysticism awaken!', and then I could use the Japanese cartoon equivalent of a Care Bear Stare..."

"I promise not to turn you into a Care Bear," he says cheerfully, and looks down at the page again. After a thoughtful moment, he circles 'it hurt' and 'you were laughing having fun' and draws a double-ended arrow between those two.

"Perhaps disappointingly, I don't have your kink," Bella tells him. "I'm pretty darn sure of that. But triangle- to square-level pain doesn't ruin my sense of humor, and even fucked-up magic powers are still magic powers."

"Yeah, I know," he says. "But it matters that you were getting hurt and having fun at the same time even if you didn't like it the way I would."

"Huh, okay," says Bella agreeably. "Anything else?"

"Mmmm." He drums the pen against the paper. "Dunno."

"You seem to like it when I have opportunities to decide things," Bella remarks. "Magic powers - not to mention taking over the world - both provide more of that. Any magic power would provide that, but the wishes are flexible - and I have to choose to make a tradeoff to get them each time, not just buy them in rolls from the bank and decide how to spend 'em."

"That does matter," says Bella, frowning and pulling out her notebook. "I'm going to make a long, long list of nice generic things to do with coins of all sizes, and find some way to wear them on my person at all times, so if it looks like I'm going to get mugged I can deplete the supply, usefully and instantly." She shakes her head. "But I have to sleep - at least until I have a hex to drop on making that go away - and should probably try not to keep too many of the big ones around. Someone who doesn't know what they're dealing with won't likely think to wish on a random glowing coin, but if they do, anything good-sized could be trouble."

"How big a coin would you need to lock up your backpack so only you can get into it?" he wonders. "Or, like, a box or something."

"I'm not sure. Possibly a pentagon, but it might take a hex - I don't know how Elias did the secret room, but I don't need quite that much sophistication necessarily. I don't want them in my backpack, though. They have to be touching me so I can use them, and I'd like them accessible in an emergency - if my car skids on the ice, I want to undo that right then, rather than dig around for a square in my bag in the backseat. I need a necklace or a bracelet or something."

"You could make it, like, invisible to people who aren't you?" he suggests. "And if I get powers and you end up buried in hexes, you can keep those all locked up in one place."

"Invisible necklace," agrees Bella. "Yes, that's a good idea. I think I can do that with a pentagon. If I can't, I'm in trouble, since I don't have a hex."

"But if it turns out that making the necklace invisible doesn't make stuff you put on it afterward invisible too," he continues musingly, "you'll be kinda screwed what with the glowy red things hanging from your neck on an invisible chain. It's a shame you've only got the one pentagon or you could just try it. See? This is why I should have magic powers."

"I think I saw something about..." She scoops out Elias's book again, and flip-flip-flips, and stops. "Here. If I wish for something that my coin of choice isn't big enough to handle, it just doesn't work. If I wish on a pentagon for a chain that I can make coins appear directly on and that will extend invisibility to those coins, then I'll either get that or it won't work." She taps the book a couple times. "I wonder if that's why stars fuck up so much - they are big enough for anything, so people don't have to be thoughtful about the exact wish?"

"I think having the invisible chain is pretty important. If I haven't thought of something more important, or a better solution to the same problem, by the time I leave here today, then I'll use the pentagon for that."

Bella smiles. She is not immune to flattery and has never troubled to render herself so.