That is fun. Sherlock smiles.

"Fun things often are."

"It's true." She makes a more modest shape - a snake - and starts flying it around over the water, rippling patterns of heat/color along its length and undulating it in a sine wave. She manages a minute and a half. "I think I'm getting tired."

"Don't operate the wand tired," says Shell Bell at once. "I'll take us home." And she does.

"What special terrors occur if you operate the wand tired? Or are you just more likely to fuck it up?"

"More likely to fuck it up, less likely to notice right away if it goes out of control," says Shell Bell. "I don't have any permanent scars but I did have to dive into the sea a couple of times."

"Aha."

"I will avoid wanding when I'm tired," says Juliet. "Unless it's an emergency and I have at least one square on me. Square can probably conjure a fire extinguisher or just outright kill the flame if it splits up out of control, right?"

"Yes, unless it's really huge, then you might need a couple," says Shell Bell. She's been continuously bending various fingers backwards throughout all this time; her hands would certainly be swollen with accumulated distress at this point if it weren't for her regen.

"I bought you a house," is how Giles chooses to return this greeting. "It's officially in my name, but you can do what you want with it, since I assume that turning part of it into a training area is on the agenda."

"Yup. Install the AI, have Sherlock move in, beat each other up in it, when I'm good enough with the wand that I don't have to practice on the beach I can do that there too." Pause. "Shell Bell, do you think squares could conjure copies of arbitrary demonology books?"

"I could probably conjure a copy of Johanna Mason's unauthorized biography," says Shell Bell, "even though this universe doesn't have any copies and I have never read it before, so I assume demonology books that have actually been written in Sunshine would only be easier."

"Uh, sure," says Shell Bell, amused.

"Try it on one book first, to make sure it works," snorts Juliet.

He rattles off a title as though he has been waiting for this day all his life.

Shell Bell switches from bending her finger to biting her cheek, so that she can catch the conjured book and present it to him. "Is this what you were looking for?"

"Yes it is," he says, and immediately hauls out pen and paper to start composing that list.

"Er, please do remember that Shell Bell's only here for a finite amount of time, can make only a finite number of squares, and every book you request will cost a square of its own," says Juliet. "I might or might not find another me with mint powers before I run out even if I only use them for emergencies, since Slayers encounter, you know, lots of emergencies. And the squares and the fire wand are the only safe magic we have access to right now."

"That," he says without looking up from the page, "is why I am not just naming titles as fast as I can think of them."

"It's not any more expensive to conjure a big book than a small one, so if any of them might have been omnibused or otherwise combined..."

"Your conservatism is appreciated, Mr. Giles," says Juliet.