"Presumably!"

"What a handy tool. How hard was the spell anyway? Do you need a blood moon to have happened however many days ago last blood moon was so you'll need to wait many months or can you do it whenever you're not particularly cross with grains of sugar?"

"Oh, I'm going to redo it after we've eaten."

"Was the development itself particularly difficult?"

"A few months."

"Huh. Surprising that you're the first one to think of this."

"There aren't that many witches, and most of them don't study that much magic."

This is Sadde's "what a goshdarn waste" face.

Shrug. She pulls out the turkey and the broccoli and divvies it up.

Ooh, food! He's actually kinda hungry, what with the long trek he just got surprise-snatched from.

It's pretty plain, but roasted just so.

Eh, still food, and he's been on travel rations for the past few days, so.

Om nom. She grabs an apple from the fruit bowl when she's had her meat and veg.

"Thank you very much for the food," Sadde says when he's done. "So it just occurred to me—is there a way for you to protect the alethiometer from being snatched by someone else doing a similar spell?"

"I could try some stuff, but mostly I just don't expect any other witches to do that. Since I'm apparently the first one to think of it."

"I suppose... But security through obscurity does not leave me feeling very secure."

"You want me to, what, curse your alethiometer?"

"Is it a curse if it's positive?"

"I don't know what kind of effect you're looking for here."

"'Cannot be fetched by magic' would be good."

"I'd classify that as a curse! What if you drop it somewhere inconvenient?"

"'Cannot be fetched by magic except Isabella's'?"

"Way more difficult."

"Yeah, makes sense that it would be."

"I'm glad that you find magic so sensible."