"I won't take exception to you asking, but I also won't say yes, and if I did I would pick a less public location in case someone got the wrong idea."

"Anti-spying ward doesn't cover that, then? But all right, sure, not everyone invincible is going to be as cooperative about playing with it as Bridget."

"Maybe once I get to know you better," she deadpans.

"Fair enough."

"Any other nosy questions?"

"Would it net me any interesting secrets if I volunteered to occasionally serve as an interpreter-who-already-knows-about-magic between you and ingots overseas?" Bella asks thoughtfully. "Since I have some languages. I don't want a full-time job while I'm in school, and if you need translations done while I'm in class you might just need to burn squares for temporary competence in French or whatever, but as long as we're being friendly and could use a basis for more opportunity to get to know each other..." She shrugs.

"Good idea," says Libby. "What languages do you speak?"

Bella names... most of them. "Most of the major Romance languages, German, Greek, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Hindi, and Mandarin. And, you know, English and Python and Lisp and stuff."

"I don't need German," she says. "And I already know an interpreter who knows about magic and speaks Russian. But you might be more convenient than Lazarus now and then."

[No I don't,] says Lazarus. [I mean, I do translation work, but not for Libby.]

[Are you sure?]

[I think I would've noticed.]

[Probably,] he agrees. [I am an interpreter, that much is true.]

"I think I'll leave that an open question for now."

"You're not very patient, are you."

"Nope. I am not."

"That's a little inconvenient."

"For whom?"

"Both of us, really. If you were very patient, I could just tell you that if you hang around me long enough, you'll pick up plenty of secrets, and that would be that."

"Even if I were very patient, I might not believe you if you told me that," Bella points out.

"If you were very patient, you might be willing to wait and see."

"I'm not seeing it," Bella says. "I don't think Bellas come in 'patient'."