"Is this a thing where you come from? I know you mentioned using flowers to communicate, but I don't know if you have bees or what."

"We have bees, and honey."

"Speaking of the communication flowers, are they otherwise like regular plants? I mean, do they need sunlight and fertilizer and eventually grow fruits and so forth?"

"They're like normal flowers if nobody's tending them but people who know enough flower magic can make them do without sunlight and fertilizer and stop them from going to seed until they want flower seeds."

"Are there a lot of different kinds of communication flowers, or just the one? Does the flower magic have mental consequences too?"

"There's blue ones for stuff you say and green ones for stuff you know, and yes, learning flower magic is like any other kind of magic."

"Stuff you say versus stuff you know? I'm afraid I don't know what you're saying."

"...like you learn magic on green flowers but talk to people on blue ones."

"You mean the flowers aren't written explanations of the magic, it just . . . goes into your head directly?"

"The green ones are a little bit like that but the blue ones are writing and pictures."

"How big are these flowers, if they can fit decent-sized pictures? I haven't seen flowers bigger than this before." She holds up two fingers about four inches apart.

"- they aren't that big. You get close to the flower and use it to see the writing, you don't see the writing on the flower, the seeing is in your head."

"That sounds . . . bizzare. What's that like?"

"It's like I said, I don't know what else to explain!"

"Well, can you see the contents of the flowers and the environment around you at the same time, or are they on top of each other, or does the flower information replace what your eyes are seeing entirely?"

"It depends how you do it. Everybody learns enough flower magic to change that."

"Fascinating. What are the mental effects of flower magic in particular?"

"Wanting to be around people more."

"Huh. Does anybody know why each kind of magic has the effect it has?"

"No, I don't think so."

"List a few more? Maybe there's a pattern." Tem calls from where he's still letting the spit pull his mana.

"Medeomancers are healers and they - forget - what people are. They're weird. Ostimancers do portals and they need to travel all the time, to new places, they can't settle down. Halomancers do stuff with - like - getting salt out of water and things - and they don't like to be around people, they're the opposite of antheomancers that way, but you can't cancel it out if you learn both, you just have both problems and they make it harder to solve each other. Tropomancers are good at tending plants and animals, and they get - friendly, too trusting."

"All of those sound like the side effect is at least vaguely related to the magic, except halomancers. Huh."

He decides he's charged the spit enough and touches the not-a-button; it starts turning, slowly and steadily against its coating of rust.

"Pyromancers do fire and they lose emotional regulation, it's illegal to learn any pyromancy most places, and most other places you're only allowed to know a tiny bit. Aeromancers do air and they're afraid of being in enclosed spaces. Geomancers do stone and earth and they're bad at dealing with it when things change. Hydromancers do water, and they're distractable."

"Yeah, there's definitely a pattern, but it's very . . . metaphor-laden?"