Steel leaves. Promise won't hear from her for two days or until she goes looking.

Promise frets a little, but not enough to go looking, in that time.

And then she's back, reporting, "I managed to get the sorcerous light thing working. I tried fire next, and that was easy." A circle of fire appears above her head as a demonstration. "It feels weird how it doesn't cost emotions to do sorcery."

"I'm pretty disturbed at the idea of any magic costing emotions to do. I still want to try going in a stone circle if I can, but only so I can see and flatten and fog harmonics for my convenience."

"I still say it doesn't hurt you if you don't overdo it, it just calms you down very thoroughly. There's been studies of people who used magic all day, every day for decades and they don't have a higher risk for depression or anger issues or anything like that. The cost is actually really useful if you're anxious and scared."

"...Point. But I wouldn't want to get into the habit of relying on it."

Shrug. "Your choice, of course. Now, I've got lightshows and fire down, what's next in terms of sorcering?"

"Do you want to learn to candy dewdrops, or patch clothes, or purify water, or what?"

"I want to learn all the things. Maybe I should just read some more of your sorcery books? Oh, and I'll need paper and ink if you want those maps."

Promise hands her a book, and some paper and ink.

Steel goes back outside with her book, returning every few hours for a new one. Read, read, read. (draw, draw, draw)

Study, study, study. Quite the bookworms.

"...What happened? And is my book okay?"

"Your book's fine, I was holding it inside my force-shell. I wasn't careful enough with the floaty stuff you can turn water into with bluestream. It's flammable, but it shouldn't have been that flammable."

"Floaty stuff?"

"I haven't quite finished college yet, but high-level bluestream does a lot of, mm, matter manipulation. They can change materials around in creative ways, make stone act like a liquid for a few minutes and then put it back, that kind of thing. The thing is, you can turn water into two not-water gases, one that is flammable and likes to float, and one that is the same thing that humans need to breathe and fires need to burn. The flammable stuff exploded and ruined my desire to experiment, so this definitely won't happen again."

"Ah."

"Incidentally, here's a harmonic map of that berry patch over that way."

"Thanks. This makes up for the tasty roots that used to grow here," Promise says dryly.

"Oops. I thought I'd picked a spot without anything useful."

"Maybe the roots will have partially escaped, being underground, and grow back."

She closes her eyes. "They're still alive, they're pouring a little disturbance into the bluestream. Maybe you should water and fast-grow them. Or I can try, I got fast-grow to work on a flower."

Promise goes and gets some water. "What do the harmonics look like where the roots are?"