"Perrrhaps we should see what the– Chinese? Or Japanese? I think those are the cardinal directions, not sure if I ever actually checked – symbols are for wind and earth, maybe, and see if drawing something like that and saying the thing works better?"

"Drawing it where? On us?"

"When Clow did rituals sometimes there were things written in papers," Kero supplies helpfully.

"...why didn't you mention it before."

"It never came up."

"Lots of things never come up," says Theo. "And now, shall we try doing some things written on paper or whatever, probably a good idea?"

"Yeah, sure, sounds good." She looks at Jess (or was it Maya?) and asks, "What've you got so far? We should maybe be a bit more systematic about this."

It was Maya, but Sadde would be forgiven for not remembering. "I've just noted down the things that you've said and what sorts of results you got – like, longer phrases work better, repetition doesn't work, targeting non-magical people seems to give you control over how it affects them but that might just be targeting people who aren't you, calling two elements maybe works better than one, speaking in a language that isn't your own only really works if you know it?"

"Okay, we should time how long we can stay in the air with each spell and see how much each piece of the spell adds to the whole, as well as whether it changes from person to person. We should try Theo's idea, too. Symbols, words, diagrams..."

Theo nods. "We should maybe see if the added power from the two elements was actually because of the two elements or just because of the longer phrase? Sort of part of the 'see how much each piece adds'."

"I'm gonna get some paper and a few timers and a couple of laptops, do we need anything else...?"

"I can't think of anything?" says Theo.

"It might matter what we write the symbols in, if they work at all? I don't know what variety of writing utensils you have."

"Pens, pencils, brushes...?"

"Different coloured pens?" She shrugs. "I'm not sure what else."

"Get different kinds of paper? Maybe something other than paper?"

"Like what?"

"If you have something like clay – I'm assuming not but I have no idea what you have – we could make marks in it, or we could draw with chalk on something…?"

"We have black boards and white boards and chalk and markers, but probably no clay." She turns to look at a door and suddenly yells, "MANFRED!"

Maya jumps a bit.

"… Is Manfred your– butler or whatever?"

Going by the appearance of the old man in a suit after she calls and the fact that he listens to Willow's requests and goes off, probably to fetch said things, yes.

Theo will wait patiently! He's apparently good at that. Or maybe he's just good at pretending to wait patiently, or he's good at coping with boredom, or– something.

Who knows.

And presently Manfred is back with all the requested objects, including some clay.

"Thank you, Manfred," says Maya.