At the one-thousand, he makes a face. "Wouldn't wanna do that all day. Not so bad for just a squeak's worth, though. How long does it take to make a coin?"

"Only as long as I have been demonstrating, to make a single one at that level. It is possible to speed up slightly if one goes above the minimum threshold for a given coin size. But it is necessary to retain enough concentration to perform the mental action associated with creating the coin, which is not automatic."

"And you can't make hexagons at all?" he says wonderingly.

"It may be that I could. One of my friends who is more like me than like you in this respect managed it, once, when she was gravely injured and did not have another source. I would not choose it unless the need were immense. I do have some left. My friends could return at any time."

"This makes good hearing."

Isibel smiles.

"Who are all these friends, anyway? How did you find them?"

"Many of them are the other worlds' versions of myself. Many others are other worlds' versions of my beloved. And their own friends from their own worlds, who are not copied here. There is a thing that happens to doors, sometimes, not when mages will it but at seeming random barring a few exceptions. I found such doors on a couple of occasions and went through them to a place where all worlds meet, and found one alt of my beloved, and later found another, and the second called his alt of me in to meet me. I was not well at the time. They healed me as best they could, and gave me my magic."

"What kind of not well?" he wonders.

"I did not adapt well to my dragonbond, having my beloved constantly in my thoughts. I underwent a sort of mental deterioration over the first moonturns I spent Bonded, and by the time I met my friends, I could no longer think clearly because it hurt when I tried."

He frowns sympathetically. "I wouldn't even begin to know how to heal that."

"My friends tried a number of things, some of them less than comfortable for myself or my beloved or both, but eventually one of them had to bring in someone she employs who has the power to see and interpret all kinds of magic, to understand the Bond and how it needed to be edited and to make the wish. I can now share thoughts with my beloved when I wish, and only when I wish."

"Editing a Dragonbond," he says with a shudder. "I can't even imagine."

"They also tried cutting me out of it completely, but that did not persist. I prefer this anyway, now."

"Wow."

"This way, with my beloved trapped in another world, we can still be somewhat together. Although I still miss him very much."

"...Your Bondmate is in another world?" he exclaims.

"Yes. It used to be that we could travel between them whenever we pleased. He was away when our ability to do that was lost."

"Wow," he says, shaking his head. "How... how long has it been?"

"Wow," he repeats.

"It may come back at any time. It has broken in the past, and returned - we thought we had corrected the problem, but it would seem another has been found."