"Okay, well, all of the aforementioned it is. I'll have a quick search to see how many actual sounds there are in the phrases too – I'm not up to date on linguistics stuff."

"Yeah, and there's the pieces of the spell. I'm not sure how to best break it down, though... Maybe we should come up with a spell that's less, er, integrated?"

"What, something simpler like just moving some wind a certain direction, or…?"

"No, like, something to fly but that's made of different bits that could all individually do flight."

"Oh, like, call upon a bunch of the different elements to help with flight, instead of just one or two of them?"

"Something like that, but in pieces which themselves could be independently used as spells. As in, tie a few different spells together, and then try each of them separately and see if the larger one is the same as the four together, or more than that, or less than that."

"Makes sense," she says. "So, like, try calling upon each of the elements to help you fly? Wind and earth haven't had any obvious effects yet, so I doubt water will cause rain or fire will, like, set fire to anything, though I'm not really sure how water helps you fly."

"Does it need to be elements? I think Theo said some of the symbols behind the cards are actually cardinal directions?"

"… Yeah, I think so? Um, keeping in mind that I think those are sometimes associated with elements, not sure."

"Um, right," she says, then looks it up. "Apparently it's usually air in the east, fire in the south, water in the west and earth in the north, but sometimes it's fire in the east, earth in the south, air in the west and water in the north, and then sometimes it varies from that too, so, um. Not sure about that."

"Is it obvious which way it seems to be from the cards? Does Windy have something on her?" she asks Theo.

"Something like what?" he asks, getting Windy out of his bag.

"Like a cardinal direction written on the card somewhere, so we know which one this magical system seems to associate with wind."

"Uh, it has all four of them, in a circle?" he says, showing her. "I don't think it's actually particularly helpful, since, you know, has all four of them. The other side, that one I'm pretty sure is just the symbol for wind."

Maya checks. "Yeah, they're the traditional Chinese and-or Japanese symbols for north, east, south, west and wind."

"We could try a very specific spell, like, something to invoke a breeze, and use East, and see if that works?"

"And then try it again with West, to make sure that actually makes a difference? That should work?"

"Sadde, you wanna do this?"

"Sure! Erm, let's see, something suitably theatrical... How do we even call upon a cardinal direction to do it."

"Wind, come from the East and give me flight?" he tries.

"That seems like it could work for any direction with wind specifically. Maybe we could do something with water instead?"

"True. Uh, I don't know what with water though, like, flow from the East and… water these plants or something, if we go outside? But then it sounds like we might be trying to divert a river or something."

"Facing the West, I summon water to my hands!" she says, cupping her hands and—

—water appears there out of nowhere.

"… Huh, cool," he says.

"Now try the others?" suggests Maya. "North might work, since people thought West or North, but then I'd expect the others to be weaker or not to work at all?"