"...I'm Dion. Hi." 

Dion doesn't seem to know what to do with a ten-year-old bouncing up and down in his face. 

The ten-year-old, undaunted, continues to bounce all over the place. 

"Why is the tavern different to normal? Why is it night through the window, it was day a minute ago!" 

"If you can read you can ask the, uh, person over there, the invisible one who makes things magically appear."

He dashes over to the bar, catching it with his hands and leaning over it.

"Hello, invisible person. I can't read. Why do I need to read, can you not talk?"

Bar produces a napkin. He stares at it. "Whooooa." 

"I can teach you to read the alphabet I know but it might need some modifications for your language, I don't know."

"No, it's okay, I can read this. It says this place translates everything, even writing. Thanks, though!" 

"That's convenient! I also do magic professionally if you're interested in wards."

Nino runs back over to their table. "You can do magic? Can I see? 

"Yeah! I can make things indestructible, got anything you want me to demonstrate on?"

"Uhhh..." He digs in a pouch that's tied to his belt with string, coming up with a shiny pebble.

"This?"

"I can definitely show you on that but it'll be easier to see with something you could normally break."

"Oh. Hmm." 

...the pouch itself?

Sure, he can do that. And now it is not a soft or bendable pouch.

"I can undo that and I can do wards that aren't like that, I just wanted to show you the most obvious thing."

Nino turns the pouch over in his hands and pokes it, trying to get it to open and close. "COOL." 

...but it doesn't work as a pouch like this, so he will ask Valanda to undo it, please. 

"Of course." And it's undone. "I can also make it durable and leave it soft but I thought I should do something really obvious first, so you could be sure you weren't just not strong enough to rip it."

Dion's paying attention too. "Can you do that as many times as you want, or do you get tired?"

"I get hungry if I do it a lot and if I do more complicated things I get tired of thinking about it but I can pretty much do it as much as I want."

"The only people back home who can do magic are the priests, and they always say they shouldn't bother the gods for every little thing." He alters his voice for the last part, clearly imitating an older woman. 

...Fuck.

"Oh, why is that?"

Nino shrugs. "The gods have more important things to do, I guess? If I was gonna do magic I think I'd be a wizard instead of a priest, but there aren't any of those on our whole island. Are you a wizard?"

"I don't know what wizards and priests are or what gods have to do with magic."

"I guess that means you're not a wizard then! A wizard is someone who studies a lot and reads a ton of books and they learn how to do magic from that. And priests can do magic because the gods grant them power, but not always." 

"Oh. And anyone can become a wizard if they study hard?"

"That's what Signor Vasco told me," Nino says with a nod. "I asked why he isn't a wizard and he said he decided to study how to serve the gods instead, but I'd rather be able to do magic whenever I want." 

He frowns quizzically at Valanda. "So if you're not a wizard or a priest, what are you? A sorcerer? Oooh, are you a warlock?" 

"...No, I think I'm a wizard and just didn't have your word for it. I've studied magic for a few years."