He makes a face. "I'd rather not buy books I only want to read once. Is there a library?"

"In the school, yeah. You can use it."

"If you want you can totally do that."

Silence for a while. "It's just so strange to not need to do anything. I could just stand here, I won't run out of hydrogen or get caught in a storm, I won't collide with anything, I won't get attacked by wild animals or pirates."

"I mean, if you just stood here forever you'd get hungry eventually."

"Keo told me the cafeteria would feed me. And there was a sort of fountain there. Infinite water just - coming out of a hole. You guys don't need to worry when it goes a whole week without raining. I have come to the conclusion that my home planet is just a terrible place to live."

"Esmaar is probably nicer than most countries," says Korulen. "I mean, they don't have any of that in Ryganaav."

"Why not?"

"Ryganaav bans magic," explains Korulen.

"That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

"I mean, they ban a lot of things. They're kind of a terrible theocracy and also they live in a desert so not having waterspouts is kind of a problem."

"I've been to towns that ban fire, or ban alcohol or something, but there's always a good reason. Fires can get out of hand really fast, and it's a lot easier to fall off if you're drunk. Unless using magic, like, rots your brain or something it seems a lot more dangerous to not have it, right?"

"It doesn't rot our brains," Korulen says, almost indignant. "It's against their religion, is the trouble."

"Religion, huh. Those are troublesome. I never saw the point myself."

"Me either," shrugs Korulen, "but lots of people do, and the one in Ryganaav in particular bans magic, and being a nonhuman too."

"...They kill nonhumans? And nonhumans from other countries put up with this?"

"There are practically no non-humans there, anymore," Korulen says. "I think there are some leonines still, but the leonines will use magic - anyway, we take refugees, anyone who approaches the border and wants in."

"Yup, Ryganaav sounds pretty terrible. I'm not sure if it's comforting or not that this world isn't necessarily safer than mine everywhere."

"It's nice here though."

"Well, apart from that place does most of the world live in relative safety and abundance? I think it would be a terrible shame if there were just one or two cities with all the shiny magic, and everyone else had to scrabble in the dirt to survive. Esmaar takes refugees, you said, so, probably?"

"Erubia doesn't allow wizardry, I think witchcraft too, but they'll allow other kinds of magic so it's not that bad - less convenient but at least they have lights. And yeah, it's really easy to immigrate to Esmaar most of the time once you get here. And there are some private charities that help with getting here."

"Good, good. Say, how many people live in Esmaar? And how many in the rest of Elcenia? Cloudbank is too spread out to get a good estimate, but it's probably something like two to five million people over the whole world."

"Um, I remember the world has like... ten billion people? Something like that. Esmaar I don't remember exactly, maybe a couple hundred million. We have plenty of people our size but not that many fey, they like places that get more rain - having a lot of fey will drive up a population fast because they're little."

Nick stops walking.