"I have been practicing magic! My mother turns out to be completely unable to perform any. And it turns out that in addition to getting really tired after doing lots of magic there are also some pretty comical side effects to running out of 'lifeforce.'"

"I've heard of it. Kit started running down his magic just for the effects, when he was a kid. Dad worried about him, and their dad didn't approve, either. I never let it get that far, myself. What was the weirdest one?"

"My room got filled with balloons. One of them had water in it instead of air. Exactly one. And it still floated somehow."

"Really? How long did it last?"

"They just stayed there. I still have the popped balloons back home. Do you know why it happens?"

"Not really. I'll get back to you on that, one of my parents will know."

Would Sadde like to place her order? Breadsticks can only do so much.

Sure! She'll have this kind of pasta and... some stuff, she's not actually sure.

There are plenty of options. Alistair has some pasta and a salad.

"How did you get caught in the storm, anyway? When I first met you?"

"Was on my way home from school, the storm just—appeared, out of nowhere. One moment, sunny, the next, flooding rains."

"Not the worst timing. On the way to school would have been better. I can't wait until college." 

"Amen. What do you wanna major in?"

"I haven't decided for sure. Maybe economics, maybe finance, maybe I'll enlist and go with French or Arabic." 

"Enlist? Really?"

"It's an option. Maybe not my best one, but my dad did, for a while." 

"Huh. That was somehow not what I expected the scion of a family of sorcerers to do."

"What did you expect?"

"To be honest I expected not-college," she shrugs.

"We're pretty integrated. I go to high school, my dad is in arms dealing, my mom worked as a buyer for a boutique before we moved here."

"Yeah, I mean, it's just really different than the mental picture 'family of sorcerers' would normally evoke in my head."

"That's fair. What's your family like?" 

"Mom's a teacher and part-time librarian. My father is—or was, at least—a pastor at a tiny town in the middle of nowhere who left me and my mom after I did some magic when I was little. Maternal grandparents are dead, my mom's siblings abandoned her when my father did." She shrugs. "All families have drama."

"They do."

Awkward silence? 

Not if it's up to Sadde!

"So, what do you like to do?"

"I'm pretty into archery, hunting, and I have a weakness for pop ballads. You?"

"Reading, a lot, and maths and physics and biology and economics and various other such nerdy interests. Going out, for any reason, especially with other people. Learning new stuff, and figuring stuff out."