"I noticed. I'd fix this part if I knew how. Maybe you'll just do bits of magic in bursts once or twice a week, or maybe you'll learn to pace yourself, or maybe you will have a lot of conversations so you don't do other things instead when you've just done magic."

"Talking with people isn't very much fun. Most of them are boring and don't know anything." He's stopped bouncing around casting the cantrip.

"Anything at all? That sounds like a stretch."

"Anything interesting. They don't know any magic or languages or things I can invent."

"And you don't like stories or art or music or knowing how to make things you didn't invent?"

"No one tells me good stories, the ones I overhear are better and so are the ones I can make up myself. I like art and music but the singing here takes so long and art you just look at and then you're done, if it doesn't do anything. No one knows how to make anything at all."

"Where'd I get the ink for these scrolls, then? Or my tinted glasses? I didn't bring them."

"No one in the palace," he corrects himself. "But I can't leave the palace."

"Yeah, that's a problem. I don't actually know any of the spells that communicate over a range - I'm missing a lot of common spells I skipped because I could do the same things with subtle arts - but maybe I'll reinvent one of those first."

A smile. "How do you invent spells?"

"I am not really sure and I'm going to have to figure it out."

"How did you learn the words on the scroll? Is inventing spells like that? Can we try hundreds of different ones?"

"I learned the words on the scroll in school and my first plan is to try to figure out what all the scrolls I know how to make have in common so I can try to guess one I don't know, but I'm not sure it'll work that way. I'm sure it'll be hundreds sooner or later, but my reserves aren't that great either so I can only test so much in a day."

"I'll save mine so I can help you test," he say solemnly. "Writing won't make me use them up, right?"

"It won't make you use them up, although it won't make them come back any faster either. And testing magic is dangerous so I'm going to do it in case I explode or something."

"I don't want you to explode."

"I don't really want to explode either, but I also don't want you to explode, and I'm only allowed to teach you safe magic."

"You have leave to teach me all kinds of magic," he says very formally, "even if it makes me explode."

"No I don't. And I still don't want you to explode."

"Yes you do, I just gave it to you, I'm allowed. I probably won't explode."

"I suspect you are not allowed to give me the kind of leave I had in mind, although of course I wouldn't teach you anything if I didn't have your personal permission to do that. And I prefer you to definitely not explode."

"What if I explode from not knowing everything? Sometimes I feel like I will."

"That would be really surprising, and I can't teach you everything anyway so I will have to live with that risk."

"Okay,' he says. "Can I go show my dad the spell or will I run out of magic?"

"I don't know if you've already cast it as many times as you can or not," she shrugs.