"Easier to cut some things that don't like cooperating with knives, too."

"Yeah - like what?"

"Some kinds of raw meat that would rather get dragged around or deformed by a knife than actually let it cut it, for one."

"Huh, yeah."

"And some kind of threads and papers that try to go between the scissor blades instead of being cut."

"Magic: it's useful!"

"I know, right?"

"It's so great!"

She hops into the air and twirls around, the petals making up her gown fluttering.

Cass giggles.

She beams.

"So if a few days is a soft limit on duration, have you noticed any other limits like that?"

"I bet there's one for size but I'm not sure I've found it, I don't try to conjure really big stuff that often... and I could be wrong, maybe you can just keep making bigger stuff."

"The table I made lunch on was about as big as I've gotten so far."

"Okay, let's see how big a table I can make."

She tries.

"Man, now I remember why I don't conjure really big stuff that often," she grumbles. "It's, like, work." But she manages a respectable dining table, which vanishes after a few seconds.

"Ah, it seems I'm more stubborn than you are."

"Stubbornness is not one of my defining traits!"

"See, my reaction to difficult things is 'you will bow before my will' not 'ugh, work'."

"I'm not so much about things bowing before my will!"

"Might explain why I've been more motivated to work on magic."

"Yeah, I think it does."

"Mm. So how's Anna liking the new flower? I have notes."

"Anna is a big fan of the new flower! She hasn't so much done magic with it, she just likes wearing it! What's in your notes?"

"Science! Notes on how difficult it is to get things to freeze in various shapes, notes on how the temperature change for a given effort corresponds to specific heat..."

"Cool!"

"And heat of fusion. I haven't been able to do anything with heat of vaporization because it only lets you make things colder, not warmer, and I haven't dared try liquefying the air."