"Wait what. How'd you—what—you know about it?"

Teo nods. "Yes, I do. I am sure there are blue magic users that don't. Which... how did you discover magic?"

He shrugs, but he looks a bit uncomfortable. "It just... clicked one day."

Teo nods. "That seems to be the most common way for not-blues to figure out. Do you know that harmony magic is caused by being an exemplar Amentan and that dissonance is by the opposite?"

"Harmony magic is created by acting in accordance with one of the principles, and dissonance magic is created by acting against one of the principles." Time for him to surprise Teo, then. "Any of the principles," he adds, innocently. "I am an exemplary grey... but not a very exemplary orange."

"Maybe. But the blue's concern is how some counter-principles can be dangerous. And dissonance magic is itself seems to be more dangerous than harmonic."

"More dangerous? I don't see how." He grabs a coin from his pocket—because of course Sahde carries a coin with him. "Two sides of the same coin," he says, flipping the coin in his hand to show a coin with two crowns, then one crown and one queen, then two queens.

Snort. "Of course you would walk around with a coin in this day and age. You are not incorrect in thinking that dissonant magic isn't that dangerous. But... do you know all the principles that cause dissonance?"

He starts counting fingers. "Idleness, selfishness, folly, unoriginality, carelessness, neglect, mediocrity, and," ominous pause, "pollution."

Teo nods along. "Blues really don't want to incentivize this traits being sources of magical power. It's basically the argument that..." he waves his hands to the other patrons, "makes me understand that going public would be dangerous. More than half are very actively dangerous to have around."

"Not false."

"Elaborate?"

"Magic isn't public," he says. "So why am I a security risk for being loaded up on dissonance magic?"

"Because you - or rather, from my perspective at the time - a gray who I knew nothing about was loaded with magic that can be fueled by being extremely careless or outright evil with it. Magical grays are not as organized as blues, but I thought I knew most who are in this city. Being an unknown quantity I needed to verify what you are up to."

"Hmm. Very—conscientious of you," he says, grinning slightly. "I thought—I don't think I had ever met anyone who knew about dissonance magic."

"Like, I said. Blue secret. I think it's just natural for people to not tend towards being very dissonant? Or only being dissonant in a way that is not appealing." Shrug. "Or secret magical assassins take care of the problem." Pause. "That was mostly a joke."

"Mostly???"

"Dissonance magic is kept a secret even among blues. Makes it hard to create an anti-dissonance magic task force."

"Okay so I wasn't going crazy when I thought even most blues didn't know about it! I thought basically no one did."

Other than reds.

Slow nod. "My family is sort of the self-appointed 'keepers' of the secret. At least insofar as the islands are concerned. We don't deploy assassins, before you ask, but I always found it weird how well-kept the secret is."

"Well, the dissonance-generating traits are actually bad so most people won't actively seek them out, and probably the first thing they'll notice when they do that is that they're losing harmony magic, that should be enough to stop everyone I think."

"I know, but I figured there would be more very selfish people out there that would."

"It's actually pretty hard to be sufficiently bad! You know, just as hard as it is to be a good enough person."

Shrug. "You know how I feel about my caste, so maybe it's that. So you have been using your magic to change sex?"

"Yeah. And," he gestures at himself, "face and stuff. So I can have sex without people recognising me, pretty much."