It's that afternoon after school when Bella next visits the Witchnook. (She already made another nighttime visit to pick up her powder, and it's safely stashed under the false bottom in the box full of notebooks under her bed.) This time she just needs beetle wings and a reasonably clear chunk of quartz. Her books and the goldvine bramble she ordered aren't in yet.
"There are other walled enclaves," says Bella. "But the competition for work inside of them is probably pretty fierce if you aren't from there."
"Besides, to make hiring decisions you couldn't just be the chef, you'd have to own or at least manage the place," says Bella.
"If I hypothetically open one here, I hardly think anyone else will be stepping up to own and manage it for me. Unless you'd like to."
"So you don't want to just be a chef, you want to be a restaurateur - you and what startup funding?"
"I imagine that of the two, witching is easier to get into without a formal education."
"Yes. But probably harder to retain a decent relationship with my parents."
"Charlie more so than Renée," says Bella slowly, shifting in her seat. "Risk of draft, risk of botched spell, risk of addiction and magic accordingly taking over one's life."
"They have better luck at enticing doctors into the USADI with mere large amounts of money," says Bella. "And the obsession symptom is a temporary feature of medical school, and if you botch something, that's what malpractice insurance is for."
"But the scale and flexibility of a halfway decent witch are better." She shrugs.