"I see magic," he explains to Rose. "Yours is very different from minting. It's more... hmm, autonomous?"

"I control spells as I cast them, but as long as I allow my aura free rein it does as it does without my controlling it except in certain details," agrees Rose. "And things like the living castle also have something of a personality. How is it that you see magic?"

"I'm an ingot. That's my power," he says. "Coins can't wish for personalitied things. They have some decisionmaking power, but it has to be pretty well specified in advance."

"Interesting."

"Wait, you just casually enchant personalities into existence?"

"Personality without intelligence," says Rose. "No great ethical quandary about it. My aura or my castle or what have you have dispositions and they react to the intelligences near them in - lively ways, but they cannot suffer or think."

Lazarus nods.

"So wishes are like programs plus gap-filling abilities, and enchantments are like servants minus intelligence?" hazards Stella.

"Pretty much accurate," says Lazarus.

"So I suppose none of you are likely to develop aura unless you can yourselves be enchanters and work on it as I have. Or at least wish for skill at it and then perform a considerable number of spells."

"How d'you be an enchanter?"

"You find your mindscape, and work from there. I can help you with it, if you have the ability at all - I'm not sure if everyone has. I helped my student find his."

"Hit me. My murderer's trial is coming up and I would be highly entertained to show up being distinctly spooky," says Juliet.

"What's a mindscape?" wonders Lazarus.

"It's a - a representation of one's mind. A beginning enchanter has to meditate into it, although I can now do many things with my eyes open. To channel through someone other than oneself one needs to find the channel's mindscape. Mine is a sphere of rosevines, with flowers on the interior and thorns on the exterior - Sue noticed them, when he attempted to link me. My husband has a castle, something like this one of late but more like the one we lived in before. Perhaps the 'opacity' power prevents me from locating Juliet's." She peers curiously at Juliet, then casts out in search of Lazarus's mindscape instead.

"I'm just looking, I won't touch, I can't read anything personal without a separate spell," says Rose. "...It's very confusing-looking. I'm not sure I would know how to channel through you even if I wanted to."

"I can imagine it would be," he says. "Also, ooh."

"On the opacity spectrum I'm one of the more opaque - me and Golden are the ones Sue can't link," says Juliet. "You might be able to check some of the others."

"Me, for example, I have no native defense," Angela offers. "If you can't actually read my mind by doing this..."

"I can read my husband's mindscape, but it required me to cast a spell first," Rose says. "I will be able to see what shape the mindscape takes, but not know what thoughts are moving through it." She backs away from Lazarus's mindscape and peers at Angela's, then reports, "Furnished - caves, of sorts, in a mountain, and background music."

"The Eyrie," concludes Angela, smiling.

"Ooh, do me, do me," says the Joker from where he is snuggling Beast.

Rose, obligingly, has a look.