"Alas, no. The gag is inconvenient in more ways than one."

"Drat. Well. I'll get history books for you."

"If you leave paper and pencil I can begin plotting your first lesson."

"Thanks!" Bella hands over a notebook and pencil.

Ellie accepts them.

"And if you can bring back a coffee or similar along with the books, I would appreciate it."

"No problem. Back in a jiffy."

"I'll be here."

Ellie takes a seat on the floor of the crypt and commences writing out a lesson plan, an exploded diagram of a summoning circle, how to fit the necessary binding in, some explanation of the theory behind them.

Bella's back in an hour and a half with some library books.

By which time Ellie has a pretty good idea of how to start teaching her summoning!

"Welcome back."

"Thanks! Where do I start?"

"With this diagram." Ellie flips to the appropriate page in the notebook and passes it over. "It's a simplified version of the one you used this morning, so you can familiarize yourself with the layout of each component."

And lo, much exposition on the topic of summoning circles was laid forth.

And absorbed with alacrity!

Ellie does appreciate a clever student.

After the circle is learned, she can start on bindings. Here are the standard phrases you should memorize, this is why they're worded thus.

Useful, boilerplates are.

Does Bella want to practice writing out a few circles with bindings so Ellie can take a look at the books?

Sure. She will leave the circle part open until Ellie looks them over but otherwise practice practice.

So, these history books. Any obviously wrong references she can spot by flipping through the tables of contents?

Nothing really obvious, alas!

Ellie will have to dig a little deeper, then.

The challenge is in remembering she should be skimming for discrepancies, not getting absorbed in the minutia of an era.

Political figures match. Musicians and artists all sound familiar or are obscure enough that it wouldn't be weird for her never to have heard of their counterparts. Geography is alike, science seems to be following a similar trajectory, all the wars are in the right places.

Not exactly promising.

How's her student doing with the circles?

"All done! Except filling in the last bit."

"A good habit to maintain. May I see?"

Bella gestures at the circles invitingly.

Ellie moves over and checks them for errors in construction, spelling, and wording.