"Makes sense."

"So what's where you're from like? Besides not a lot of kids and not a lot of magic."

"Lot of trees. Woodsail exports wood."

"I guess that makes sense! Is it a port town?"

"Yeah. Lots of boat traffic. Boats are constructed there too."

"Makes sense," Odette nods, picturing completely inaccurate water-based ships. "What problems do they have for lack of mages? Besides, uh, the age thing."

"Lesser concerns of medicine, plus having to do everything with more labor instead of a little magic. It's a nice enough place, people there are happy, but it could be a lot better."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Sometimes I wish magic were more convenient, but it's a lot better than not having any."

"Yeah, if you have it you can make the tradeoff for yourself."

"That too, I was thinking of areas where the tradeoff is obviously--well, to me--worth it."

"There are some no-brainers out there, yep."

With a brief crack, Atennesi appears. 

"Hello! I see you two have met."

"Yes! She sounded interesting."

"I like to think I'm pretty interesting!"

"You generally manage that, yes," Atennesi says dryly, "and are in more broadly relevant to Belamaveth's interests in particular--but for the moment, I have things I need to discuss privately with the both of you. Do you mind if I teleport the three of us to my office?"

"I don't."

"Go for it."

Teleport!

He sits down, not behind his desk, but in a soft cushy chair off to the side, and conjures up a pair of soft cushy chairs forming roughly an equilateral triangle with the first. 

"Belamaveth, you're almost completely informed; do you mind if I spend a few minutes bringing Odette up to speed?"

"I don't mind."

So Atennesi explains to Odette, first about the conspiracy of the other Great Mages and why she is not supposed to leave Genosha, and then about the mirror-headed snake and where it sent him and how Belamaveth happened. 

Odette listens, wide-eyed, and at the end turns to Belamaveth and says, "That is incredibly cool."

"Thanks!"

"And, wow. This is...sort of good news? I mean, a conspiracy by the other Great Mages is fucking terrifying, but it's a lot more straightforwardly solvable than the logistics problem I thought we had."

"What logistics problem did you think we had?"

"Getting enough mages to enough places to cover everyone, which was apparently hard enough that Atennesi, who is much better at politics and other forms of convincing people do things than I am, had not managed to make visible inroads on in almost a century in a half."