"Maybe he's Scott! Like a reincarnation deal, and once he collects all the cards, he'll remember."

"Stiles, be serious. I think if I had put that much of my life into something, and I thought someone else would be able to finish it for me, I would let them take care of it. There might not be a mystery here, just a sad ending." 

"I'd totally do the reincarnation deal, though, if it let me somehow renew my magic and still have access to the cards and it was the only way to do it."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not Clow Reed's reincarnation...and I'm the one who's catching the cards. I mean, you guys can use the cards, but it's not exactly the same. Why would he choose not to be the cardcaptor?" 

"Maybe so he could do something other than them? I have no idea."

"We might be able to check for reincarnations of Clow Reed..."

"Oh, is there a spell for that?"

"I'm not sure this helps, anyway, whether he's dead for good, or reincarnated. Maybe Kero could explain magical objects? You have the bow, there are the cards, and there's the staff...I don't really understand how all that works, plus spells? There must be some kind of system."

"I don't really know much about the artifacts. They need a ritual to be made, and they sacrifice the sorcerer's magic permanently, but Clow never taught us sorcery."

"Wait, hold on, I'm curious, if Clow's alive I'd love to figure that out."

"Most of the ways to find someone rely on knowing who you're looking for, or whatever specific qualities you want."

"What do you mean?"

"If I was looking for you, I could aim for Sadde, the person I know, without much issue. Light, and truth, for finding things. We don't know who exactly we're looking for, so we try to get at things that are unique about Clow Reed. Luckily, we have a source." 

Blink. "Me?"

"Cool, what kinda info do we need?"

"It's easy to create a spell to look for sorcerers, normally, but harder the more powerful than you they are- if they're guarding against it. If he reincarnated and doesn't remember, but was just relying on his personality sticking, this would help. If he does remember...then it probably won't work."

"So we can check, a negative won't necessarily mean much, but a positive will." He looks at Kero.

"Oh. Ummmm. He was... He really liked magic, learning all about it and understanding it right. He used to say all the other sorcerers didn't know what they were doing and relied too much on tradition and the cards were proof. He liked studying other things, too, like science... He really liked people and was kinda sad that other sorcerers almost never just wanted to have a normal relationship with him without any ulterior motives. He was a bit of a prankster, too. He liked working really complicated games with people but it was never really mean, unless they were mean first and then he'd do that to teach them a lesson."

"—uh."

"No, no, okay? This is completely ridiculous, I am not dating Clow Reed!" 

"Are you literally dating Clow Reed? I should write a trashy tell-all after we catch all the cards, this is golden." 

"Kero, you could probably recognize a reincarnation, right?"

"Okay I am very disappointed in my ex-self if this is the best they could do. Also, 'he,' seriously? No way is a me cisgender."

"Not magically..." He looks at Sadde. "I don't know about 'cisgender.'"

"Do you not know what it means, or not know if Clow was?"