"Aww." Jaromira hugs her brother. "It's good that you've got someone other than me. Talk to her if you're worried about messing up. Tell her that you're not good at being close to people, and how exactly you expect that to impact things. If she's really as wonderful as all that, she won't take it too badly as long as you phrase it as 'I'm concerned about your boundaries please help define them more specifically' rather than 'I expect to behave badly.'"

He leans into the hug. "Thank you," he says quietly. "You're--so much better at people than I am." He giggles. "That was one of the things that was funny, even, we joked that extroversion was witchcraft and it ended up with the Inquisition with the comfy chair--you know, from Monty Python--versus the tea we made with the boiling spell and an 'interrogation'."

"That's adorable. You're adorable," Jaromira declares. "You-plural are adorable."

"Thanks."

"Can we talk?" Kanimir asks when he walks up. "About last night, I mean."

"...Yeah? Wow, that's not an ominous conversation starter or anything, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just..." he trails off. "I've always been an introvert, but when my mother died, I withdrew. For almost a year Jaromira was the only other human being I would talk to. I've gotten better since then, obviously, but I'm not good at figuring out what's appropriate or healthy concerning human relationships. ...I don't know if I'm actually in love with you yet, but I seem to be very infatuated at the very least. I do not want to get clingy or pushy or otherwise problematic, but I'm not completely certain where the boundaries are."

"The latter. I didn't think I had done anything wrong yet, but--I want you to know that if I do, you can tell me and I will back off. I don't expect to, but. People usually don't."

"Okay, noted. I wasn't really worried about it, for whatever that's worth in assuaging your concerns. I can use my words, I did not expect any such words to fall on deaf ears, and if they did I can go all pointy."

"Awesome, let's see it."

Kanimir shows her his list. Large chunks of it are the same as hers, but there are some areas where they don't overlap.

He focused more than her on the possible duration of the spell, and on reflection that rune over there might be better suited to a magic item than a scroll.

"I think so. It would be better if there was a third party to look it over for us, of course, but..."

"But. I mean, I guess we could wait until Jaromira or Daphne gets around to reading through the textbook? Are they likely to?"

"They've started, but they haven't gotten all the way through yet."

"When do you think they'll be through the chapters on the meanings so they could triangulate?"

"By...Wednesday, I think. Those two allocate their mental resources differently because they're more social than we are, but they're both still very intelligent and they read fairly fast."

"Hm. We weren't too far off from each other. What say we go from here and try to work out - a few different ways to diagram a spell out of the meanings, take our time, but not cast it until they do some homework? We don't want to be a statistic. We wouldn't even be accessible enough as a statistic to deter anyone on the margin."

"Yes, I agree."

"Okay. Will they mind being assigned homework?"