"Yes, I suppose. I can do the steps if I have to," sighs wheelchair girl. "Although really it's only a matter of time before someone who's genuinely paralyzed from the waist down turns out to be a critter, so it's still irresponsible." She wheels for the door. The shopkeep doesn't bother to tell them to come again another time.

"Perhaps it's for the best, then, that you came along first, since you do have both reason to chide and the ability to access the person to do so."

"I mean, we don't actually know that she showed up before any actual paraplegics, for all we know those stairs thwart someone every other Tuesday," the lone confirmed critter in the group points out.

"That is a point. Although I suspect if it were literally so frequent something would have been done by now."

"You'd be surprised! Although all my information on that is not from inside the Avalon; I'm new here."

"We are, too."

"I found out I was a firebird under kind of awkward circumstances, and then I met Jaromira a while later, and we just kind of--clicked. And she was a sympathetic ear who wasn't close enough to the situation to make it weird, and then of course she told her brother everything--about critters and magic and stuff I mean, not the personal stuff I told her--and it turns out he's kind of a huge fantasy geek, and the idea that magic was real, well."

"It's real but apparently in an absolute institutional shambles," sighs Wheelchair Girl. "I'm May. I'm a wyvern. You'll forgive me if I don't demonstrate." She gestures at the chair.

"Oh, of course. And I'm Daphne and I just said this was Jaromira, and that's Kanimir," she says, waving at the relevant persons as they're named.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, even under the circumstances. Perhaps especially under the circumstances. I think I'd not have inquired after educational possibilities for some time had you not been there." He snorts. "'Institutional shambles' may be too kind. Had there been an institution in the first place for there to be shambles of there would at least be some historical precedent for finding teachers."

"Oh, of course."

"D'you want some help with it? I have no idea how much those things weigh."

"Don't worry, if you'd fallen on either of us we'd blame the bookstore owner for not putting in a ramp."

"Indeed," says Kanimir, surveying the organizational system.

The bookstore has conventional sections, from romance novels to cookbooks. It also has a section entitled Magical Nonfiction. May rolls in its direction.

"I mean, mostly it's Kanimir who's interested in learning magic. Daphne and I aren't totally uninterested--we're sane, after all--but he's the one who really, really wants it."

"...The amount of money I can draw on without Father asking questions I'd rather not answer doesn't cover a medallion but it would cover those books. If I bought them for you would you be willing to do some kind of time-share on the one there's only one copy of? We could meet--somewhere public, of course, I'm all but a stranger--say once a week to exchange it and discuss? Having a teacher doesn't seem to be on the table, but having someone else to learn with seems worthwhile."

"...You are offering to buy the books for me, so that I will have them, in exchange for me showing up somewhere periodically to study buddy with you," says May, blinking. "Is that what you're saying?"

"That's mostly it. I also enjoy spending Father's money on things he would disapprove of. And I would not wish to deprive you of access to information on magic, given how difficult it apparently is to find."

"Our dad's a neglectful prick and you seem cool."

"Well, I'd be very silly to turn down this deal, and I am many things but that's not one of them. You have yourself a study buddy, Kanimir."