"We might not all need to go to different places, though – plenty of people go to a college for their A-levels instead of moving on to sixth form, so Theo and Jess and Willow could just move to one of those for next year? I'm not sure they need to, but like, it's an option."

"Yes, Willow is planning on doing just that."

Nod. "That sounds fine then."

"Depending on how useful sorcery is, it might be better to start doing that more full-time eventually."

"That's up to you and your parents, I suppose. I'm just letting you know your options, resources aren't a problem." Observably.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure how the law works around these– um, resources. I suppose we could say it's an 'apprenticeship' or something if we can find someone to 'apprentice' under, but I dunno."

"It might be better to just finish everything as normal and start working on this full-time instead of going to university."

"So have another two years of sixth form?" He shrugs. "Yeah, might be worth it."

They don't have to do another two years – for their age group, the legal requirement is only to be in education up until just before the September after you turn seventeen. Another two years would mean completing their A-levels, though, and that's until just before the September after they turn eighteen.

"And by then you'll be of age and be able to do whatever you want to do."

Nod. "Probably a good idea."

"You know, I hadn't actually given what we'd do later much thought, after finding magic. Was still going with the plan of probably-university."

"I mean, I hadn't thought about it either, but I'm pretty sure 'go to university like normal' is… probably not the way it should go."

"Well, why not?"

"Well first of all because– I was going to say I'm pretty sure we won't have all the cards by then, but actually we might if we continue at the rate we've been getting them – but magic is kinda… probably more important and a slightly more interesting route than going into something like maths or whatever I would have done instead?"

"Maths could still be fun," says Tyler. Shrug.

"Maths is definitely fun, but he does have a point that maybe going to uni for maths may not be a fantastic idea. Especially now that we have magic beyond the cards'."

"Mm," agrees Tyler. "Wasn't meaning to contradict."

Shrug.

"...you know, this makes me think that maybe a good place to look for sorcerers is amongst the rich and famous."

"Yeah," agrees Theo. "And I can probably check if they have magical ability with the meditation thing, if I can do that inconspicuously and if they haven't hidden themselves using sorcery or something?"

Maya makes a note to check if that's a thing they can do.

"When you become more powerful, you will be able to meditate at will whenever you want. Like this." And he crosses his legs, closes his eyes, and starts glowing.

"So that might be useful, yeah," he agrees.

"Can other people do that? The meditation thing?"

"I tried and managed but it was hard and time-consuming and boring."