"Spells," she agrees. "C'mon upstairs."

Cam follows her upstairs.

As she ascends, she asks over her shoulder, "If you were a chess piece, which one would you be and why?"

"My first instinct is 'queen, because they're obviously the best', my second instinct is to wonder how this information is supposed to be used so I can give a less kneejerk reply?"

"A lot of my magic, and in particular my protection magic, is chess-themed. Spell participants and sometimes spell targets are represented by chess pieces. I make an excellent rook; James tends to take king and queen simultaneously, but she can do either one separately just fine, and she's also been known to handle the occasional knight if a spell called for it. There's a lot of leeway in constructing the metaphors, but certain people still usually have more affinity for certain pieces than others. I could see you as a queen. Jamie, is he a queen?"

"He's pretty queenly," says James, following up the stairs behind them. "You could probably shoehorn him into knight if you had to. Not rook. Maybe bishop, if you wanted a specific bishop metaphor. I think he might be too old for pawn. King is iffy."

"I'm a hundred seventy-two. Pawn is age-limited?"

"It's not strictly age-limited, but from what I've gathered just idly guessing the past and present chess affiliations of people I've met, it seems like some people go through a pawn phase early on and then grow out of it sometime between late teens and early thirties. When I consider whether or not you'd make a good pawn, I get a bit of an ex-pawn vibe."

"Ex-pawn. Huh. What are good pawns like?"

"Flexible, versatile. Someone with a lot of unrealized potential, or someone who can take on a variety of different aspects or roles to fit the situation," says James. "I can do pawn in a pinch, but it's by no means my natural piece, I'm way more of a king/queen split than anything else."

"This is a very cool floor," comments Cam. "I'm assuming it's not just aesthetics."

"I can do that, can you tell me why?"

"Usually I have to fit the metaphors I'm planning to my available chess pieces. I'd give you a white queen and James the black king and queen from the same set, and myself all four rooks, and I'd just have to pick the set that came closest to what I'm aiming for. But since I have the option, I might as well fit the chess pieces to the metaphors instead. Jamie's taking queen-as-sword and king-as-crown; you're taking queen but I'm not planning the exact aspect in advance, so the important thing is for your queen to be something that resonates with you. Oh, and I didn't specify, but it also helps if my rooks are either the traditional turret shape, or something else with a stone-walls motif. That's my usual rook aspect. But it's less important to include that than to get the rest of it."

"And what, exactly, are you planning to cast on me with this chess set?" Cam asks.

"General protection spell, with focuses on luck and magic. Bad things become less likely to happen to you, and anyone trying hostile magic on you gets stonewalled unless they're powerful enough to break through the spell. Which hasn't happened yet, although I haven't gone up against any really big players, so I'm not going to give a guarantee. You won't notice a difference in daily life unless you're the sort of person who stubs your toe a lot - little accidents like that will get less frequent. And if someone does break the spell, the break itself won't do you any harm on top of whatever nastiness they're getting through with. Might throw some alarming special effects, but that's it."

"Does this remain the best spell you have in the arsenal if I tell you that at least under conventional circumstances I am physically indestructible? Not invulnerable, just indestructible."

"Yeah. It's not a direct physical protection. Those are harder and less effective, and I figured that if you don't know much about local magic, protecting you from it was probably a higher priority than protecting you from unexpected stabbing."

"I am moderately protected from unexpected stabbing," volunteers James.

"Okay. How big do you want the pieces, and do you want a board to match or are you just using your fancy floor?"

"Anything in the standard size range should do it, and I don't need a board but it is helpful to have the full set available even if we aren't using all the pieces. Standard sizing usually puts the kings between three-and-three-quarters and four inches tall," she adds, "in case you didn't know that off the top of your head like us chess nerds. Queen is next tallest, conventionally followed by bishop, knight, rook, and pawn in that order."

"Very nice," says Chris. "All right. Jamie, gimme a square. Focus east, white queen front and center, white rooks in line, king north, queen south, black rooks with their monarchs. You'll be sitting anchor. Those are some interesting pawns; I think I'll use them in the circle. But the knights and bishops can go on the table."

"Got it," says James. She proceeds to lay out the major chess pieces on the floor according to Chris's specifications. Cam's diamond queen stands close to the middle of the room, facing the window; the white rooks stand one in front of her and one behind, with the one in front about two feet away and the one behind more like six, putting them about equally distant from the centre of the floor pattern. The tourmaline king stands on the queen's left, the tourmaline queen on her right, each with a black rook in front of them; together, the four rooks form a square centered on the middle of the room. She leaves the fairy pawns clustered between the square and the window, but collects knights, bishops, and spare king to put them all on the long table.