"Not that that isn't an amusing mental image."

"Little bit. It'd look like I was planning to feed you to my nestlings."

"...I'm honestly not sure whether that mental image is disturbing or adorable."

"The nestlings would be adorable and their eating habits disturbing, I think."

"Yes, probably. Please don't feed me to your nestlings."

"I don't have any, worry not."

"...Every witty response I can think of to that one sounds dramatically inappropriate, even in my head."

"My fault for bringing up nestlings. What have you been up to besides magic?"

"Schoolwork, detangling emotions with my sister, baking, in the one case, carving the wax tablet, unless that counts as magic, and reading."

"Carving the wax tablet completely counts as magic. Reading what?"

"The Iliad, lately."

"First time through?"

"No, I've read it before. The Odyssey, too."

"I love old literature. Mostly Anglophone, but I like stuff like that too. Got to wait a few centuries for all the stuff that doesn't really resonate and age well to filter to the bottom and then skim off whatever's on top."

"I think there's certainly something to be said for stories that provide excellent social commentary for the time they're written but don't generalize well, but in general I completely agree with you. Before I discovered magic I was going to learn Ancient Greek and Latin to fill the time so I could read the originals. I suppose I'll probably still get to it someday, but I don't need to fill my time anymore."

"I suppose it would be more aesthetic to cast in Latin or Greek," May says, and then she quiets and smiles at the waitress as their food arrives, then continues presently, "but the delay isn't worth it, I think."

"Oh, yes. But with any luck we'll get around to everything worth getting around to, someday."

"Oh yes. Just once I want to stand on a dramatic bit of terrain in witch robes and chant in Latin to make the wind do my bidding or call a lightning strike. While being photographed, of course."

"Casting from scrolls written out in heavy, dusty grimoires--oh, I just had a thought. The book said a spell could determine between different marking methods. It might be possible to make multiple-use scrolls by tracing over the runes with several different types of writing implement."

"...Or one of those pens with several nibs!"

"How close do you have to be to a scroll to cast from it? Does it have to be flat? We could roll up scrolls, seal them inside sticks, and sell wands with given numbers of charges."

"I bet it doesn't have to be flat! Oh man, that's a great idea. We'd want to pick spells with short easy incantations for that, though, it'd be a lot of trouble if people exploded themselves with our merch."

"...Easy incantations and a waiver warning them very sternly that magic is dangerous and messing up a spell can kill you so don't screw around with the words, I think."

"Yeah. It's like selling... chainsaws, flamethrowers, that sort of thing."

"At least the results of being horribly irresponsible despite copious warning to the contrary are only likely to do grievous harm to the irresponsible individual. That much one cannot say for chainsaws."