"That's a pretty big 'except'. Were they trying to assassinate the duke or his niece?"

"The plot did not get far enough for them to conclusively tell. Sandrilene's theory, with which I find myself agreeing, is that they were both targets."

"Sandrilene was a mage, too, right?"

"Yes. A thread mage, educated at Winding Circle. I intend to read her biography next. Would you like to borrow this one when I am finished?"

"Sure."

She smiles.

"Mercy says you read a lot. Is it mostly biographies or all different stuff?"

"All different. I like books. They - stay still."

"What does that mean?"

"It means... they don't move, or make sounds, or change. When I read a book, the book is not doing anything. It is always exactly the same book, unless someone touched it and left a nick or a fold or a smear. Just a sequence of words waiting patiently for me to take them all in. They're very restful that way."

"Huh. I never thought about it that way."

"I don't think very many people do."

"I like books because I can read them as fast as I want and skip around in them if I feel like it. Sometimes teachers get impatient if I don't want to learn things in the order they have in mind. It's also easier to take notes out of books and I like having notes because that way I don't forget things but I don't have to go re-read things in their original book either, I can get them already-thought-about in my notes."

"Oh," she says. "I think I would like rereading things in the original book more than rereading notes I made about them. Even if my notes were very good, they wouldn't be exactly the same as the book, and if they were then it would be pointless to have them as long as the book was still available."

"The notes are what I have in my head after I read the book," explains Stormy. "If I re-read them it's mostly like re-reading - not exactly, because if I do re-read I get slightly different things, but it's much faster. They're the understanding and not the presentation."

"If I reread something it would be because I wanted to remember what it was," she says. "With all of its details just so. If I want to remember how I understood something, I remember it, and if I forget the understanding then I want to reread the thing itself and understand it again. Because otherwise I might miss something."

"That seems like it would take longer. It might get better understanding done but I don't know if it's worth it all the time."

"Having all the details just so is important to me even for things that are not themselves very important," she says.

"How come?"

"If I did not know everything just so, then... I might miss something, or make a mistake about something. And that would be bad."

"Why?"

"Because then I wouldn't have things right."

"What do you need them so exactly right for?"

"To know things. To be sure about them. It's not for anything, really. It's for itself."

"That sounds like a lot of work to keep on top of though."