One could argue that the time of distrust should've happened when he was outside the witch's lair.

At any rate he is very much inside the witch's lair and it's a short flight towards her study, which, contains several shelves with an assortment of books, crystals, weird instruments and things that defy categorization.

A table moves to the center of the room, it contains: a jar full of tiny eyes, too tiny to be human; a device formed by metallic wires and lenses, a set of scales but with four plates, a candle (already lit with blue fire), a tuning fork, a tiny crystal attached to a silver chain, a smooth rock with a hole in the middle and note taking materials.

"It's kind of funny, points magic mostly doesn't need tools. Aside from, like, paper and quills to think with."

"I must admit that yours certainly has it's advantages." She waves the tuning fork around him. It vibrates with an eerie sound. "How much magic do you still have left on you?"

"Seven red, five blue, eight white, six green, ten black."

"How much would you be willing to spend today for the sake of testing? Ideally, I would like to see every color being used once."

"Five minutes of local magic tutoring or a little bit of money per point that is going to something that's exclusively a test. It it's for something I want to try or use anyway, then nothing."

She thinks about it. "I wouldn't mind teaching you a bit of magic, but I am not sure there isn't some magical interaction that could prevent you from doing the local kind... granted, that was actually one of the tests that I wanted to do."

"Hmm. Me trying to do the local kind probably won't use any points, and if it does, that's an accident and I can't charge you for it."

"Great work ethic," she complements. "Could you do an active magical effect that lasts a while? Ideally, floating a marble."

She takes the eyes with a pincer and then the lenses-and-wires thing, placing an eye on each lens, also one in the holed out rock. She has marbles.

"Well, I can totally float a marble. Take out parts of 'telekinesis of small object' and just have it not fall down 'till the point runs out... Hmm..."

He concentrates for a moment, and then it clicks. One marble drifts upward lazily. "That one. Not sure how long it'll last."

She nods eagerly. She takes out a wand - seemingly out of nowhere - it's straight, narrow and made of dull grey metal with a ring around with a circle in the tip and small glass sphere. Temps murmurs "lift like the breeze, stick like the nail." Another marble lifts. The witches hmms to herself.

"Adam? Could you cast yourself, I need more samples to compare."

Adam takes the wand and repeats the incantation.

Temperance frowns a bit, but then shrugs. "Okay, Nico, do you mind if you cast the spell on another marble?"

"With points, or trying your kind?"

"My kind, with the wand."

"...Lift like the breeze, stick like the nail?" Hesitant wave. He's trying not to use his own magic by accident more than he's trying to do this new kind.

He only notices it because he was holding the wand, but there is a minute rattle that comes from the inside. Regardless, his marble lifts. Temperance hmms and ponders to herself.

"Is it supposed to shake like that?"

Temperance squints. "Yes... it's not normal, but given that you're from another world and doesn't have fairy blood at any remove, it's entirely normal."

"...Well then, is it worrying?"

"It's interesting!"

"That doesn't answer his question."

"Not it isn't worrying. It's rare, but not worrying."

"Me being a weirdo foreigner is going to make things different, hmm? Say, why does that work? Why not, lift like the hand, stay like a dog, or something?"

"That particular command," she muses for a second, "would've worked, but not as efficiently. And the dog bit would make it require focus to keep it still. This particular wand set-up works better if you use an incantation with two opposing elements, ideally with one of them being metal because of the shaft part. Breezes are large, gaseous, moving and harmless. Nails are small, solid metal, stick to places and can be potentially dangerous."