"That is not at all how magic works in Thilanushinyel."

"What do you do instead?"

"...I'm not entirely sure how to explain," he admits. "I've never had to before."

"I don't have any place to be," laughs Lexi.

Lycaelon grins. "Okay. Well, first of all, there are three kinds of mage that I know of - High Mages and Wildmages, who are human, and Elven Mages, whose species I'm sure you can guess."

"Sarion's one of those," nods Lexi.

"She is!" he agrees. "Each of the three kinds works differently. A High Mage casts spells using energy drawn from themselves or the people around them, and their spells are very reliable and predictable: the same spell done the same way will have exactly the same effect every time. It's hard for them to improvise, though, for just that reason; a High Mage might take several years to invent a new spell, because they have to build it out of existing pieces using formulas and experiments. Wildmages, on the other hand - I'm a Wildmage - our magic is less like doing a spell and more like asking a friend for a favour. An incomprehensibly vast and powerful friend."

"Man, I don't have any incomprehensibly vast and powerful friends. I have an incomprehensibly vast and powerful sister, does that count?"

"...no," he says. "Your sister is less vast and more comprehensible than the Wild Magic."

Lexi laughs. "Okay, so you ask it for favors, and then it - usually does them, I guess?"

"You ask the Wild Magic to do something - heal someone, find a lost object, change the weather, many other sorts of things. The energy to do it usually comes from yourself, the people around you, or objects where you've stored energy that ultimately came from those places, but once in a very long while the Wild Magic will power a spell itself. And apart from that immediate cost, every spell of the Wild Magic also comes with a Mageprice, which is like your friend asking you for a favour in return."

"Huh, that sounds kind of cool. Do you stop getting spells if you don't do its favors? What kind of favors do incomprehensibly vast and powerful friends even want?"

"...It's... complicated. But, um, shirking your Mageprice is generally considered a very bad idea. And it can ask for all kinds of things, but mostly it wants things that will - help. The Wild Magic wants to make the world a better place, and it's incomprehensibly vast and powerful, but it's also, well, limited. Mageprice is one of the only ways it can make changes in the world. So it sends each of us to improve things in whatever ways we can. Sometimes we have no idea what a particular Mageprice is doing to help, but sometimes it's obvious. A lot of mine have just been 'go there and heal this'."

"What happens if someone else does it before you get there?"

"They don't."

"What, ever? What if they're just being a jerk and ask you what your price is and then run as fast as they can?"

"...The people I've been sent to heal usually weren't capable of running when I got there."

"No, like if somebody else asks you and goes ahead of you. Not if they just heal themselves."

"Why would anyone do that? Never mind," he says. "Yes, I suppose it's possible that sometimes your Mageprice turns out to be something that someone else has done before you get there, but it's never happened to me or to any other Wildmage I know. I told you, the Wild Magic is incomprehensibly vast and powerful. I think it thinks these things through."

"Huh. Cool. Does Sarion, like, talk to it?"

"Liselen does, actually. Most people can't, and even Wildmages can only really communicate through spells and Mageprice, but when the Wild Magic needs something said or done that Mageprice won't cover, it sends a unicorn."

"Oh, huh, I don't think that ever came up, mostly I just admire him and his unicorn-ness."

"He's very admirable that way."

"He is! How do you communicate through Mageprice, it doesn't sound much like - you know, talking."

"It's exactly as not like talking as it sounds, but it's still more communicative than not interacting directly at all," he says. "When I cast a spell, the Wild Magic learns something about what I want; when I get a Mageprice, I learn something about what it wants. Not exactly a conversation, but still kind of an exchange."