"I can put together a, like, quick reference guide out of the stuff I've found. If you think it'd help. Actually, the Association people might already have one..."

"They might, but if I read yours too that halves the chance of missing something."

"I'll make it then. Seems like a worthy use of an hour or two."

"Thank you!"

"What are friends for, eh? I'll turn into the sidekick who constantly says one liners at this rate. Oh nooo."

"Pretty sure that entitles you to a cool van full of monitors, so it could be worse."

"Yeah, that's true. I'd get to make all the cool gadgets and not be the one actually getting in trouble."

"Yeah, that actually sounds like more fun than the fighting part except for how fighting with magic feels really good."

"It's not addictive or anything, is it? I keep seeing references to how magic wants to be used, but I don't have the qualia."

"I don't . . . think so? I don't get withdrawal symptoms when I'm not using it, and I don't find myself wanting to turn on the fire in situations where fire would be a bad idea or anything. It's more like how people who get runner's high describe that, I think."

"Good... Which reminds me that I should probably exercise, like, ever. Heh."

"Yeah, me too probably. Self-defense is easier if you can run around without getting tired."

"And exercise has all sorts of long-term health benefits. I could maybe even make myself do it consistently if I worked out a schedule or something."

"Yeah. I walk to school and back every day, if I had more exercise in my daily routine I'd probably do it just as regularly."

"It competes with so many things that are less awful and exhausting, though! Like reading about genies."

"Or robotics club, or magic practice, or reading books . . . not enough hours in the day."

"And if you devote all your hours to interesting academic sorts of things, there's none left to occasionally relax so you don't go insane."

"I think if you've got enough different things to do--school, robotics, reading, magic practice--you can take a rest from one by doing another and stay same like that. Or at least, that's the hope."

School and robotics club and all the other things continue. Her magic is a fair bit stronger than it was before she fought the little monsters. Not a vast gulf, but an extra few inches in how far she can project fire and how much skin the scales cover when she's focused on maximizing them.

Margaret shows no signs of burning out, no pun intended. She does a lot of practice with her fire, including trying to use it as a soldering iron at robotics club, and gets good at making her scales cover as much of her skin as possible. She likes her scaly face much better than her normal one.

She gets diminishing returns from practice after a week. 

The Stirling Engine book comes in at the library.

Is all this practice making her outfit any fancier? Oh hey, Stirling engine book! She finds Teddy after school and shows it to him. "The book arrived! Want to go to the library and read through it together?"

Her outfit's hem trim changed from 'straight' to 'little loopy pattern'. The ends of the shirt sleeves are flared a bit now.

"What kind of question is that? 'Course I do. I'll bring my laptop, I bet there'll be some tough math."

"Great!" Laptop, notebook, onward to the library! There's a group work area where talking is at least mostly allowed.

They retrieve the book from the librarian, who notes that the replacement cost is pretty high, so try not to lose it.

Teddy's thumbing through the table of contents even before they sit down.