"Clow was the most long-lived of them."

"What sorts of ages did the others live? I'm wondering if they actually did immortality or just better health or…?"

"I didn't meet many other sorcerers, but I think none of them was older than a hundred."

"That sounds like it's just better health instead of immortality, in that case. … Unless they looked young when they were like seventy?"

Shrug.

"… Okay," she says, then turns to Sadde. "You– probably want to go take that shower, then."

"...yeah, I do."

She looks at the Maxwell twins.

Willow will go show her to the bathroom.

Maya will– realize that she should probably try to drain her mana too, and note the approximate times that the others drained theirs.

Then she decides that actually, no, she'll leave her probably-mana undrained in case there are horrible side effects. Such as it being a limited pool of magic that never recharges. (Presumably not. But ew.)

"...so, like, now that almost everyone is magicless, what then?"

"You mean, what are we doing next? Um." She thinks. "Have you guys tested the cards much?"

"Some," says Theo. "But not a huge amount?"

"'Cause we could try doing stuff with them. Wait until you get back enough mana to do it, or I use the card or something since I'm not out of mana?"

"Well, if whenever we run out of mana something weird happens—three times is a pattern—Theo hasn't actually run out of mana since he dispelled the Sword."

"Should I try running out of mana again, then? Assuming that's what it is, since it seems to be?"

"Sounds like a good experiment. Maybe do it by writing more papers, since that seems safest?"

"Yeah," he agrees, then starts writing 'water' onto various pieces of paper, charging them.

It works!

For how many pieces of paper does it work? It might be important.

Exactly one. The next one becomes candyfloss.

"Huh. Well, okay, the Sword worked to take up probably around one water-paper's worth of mana."

… Noted.

"No, you also fixed your skin."

… Re-noted.

"… Perhaps I should keep better track of this sort of thing. Yeah."