"Therein lies a tale, I suspect."

"Which part? Wanting magic's pretty obvious, but getting it - eh. Pretty straightforward. They were used to being the top dogs, with only other mages to deal with. Not so much, in this case, and they got conquered rather than doing the conquering."

"You realize I'm missing a lot of context here? I don't understand half what you're getting at."

"Oh, right, sorry. Uh, basically - mages are a bunch of conquerors, and have been like that for a while. I guess it didn't go that way with witches, but with us - like you hand them power and they're like, 'Let's go oppress some peasants, that sounds like a great idea!' So they did that, except our magic dwindles over generations. So they're constantly afraid of losing it. Thus - trying to find more options for it. Personally I don't give a damn about any of that crap, and neither does my brother, but they do."

"It didn't go that way with witches," confirms Ranata. "We don't have the - dwindling problem, and while there are places in our history where mortals have come off the worse for knowing us, this is mostly an individual matter, not larger populations."

"Ours did large populations. I dunno why. I mean there are specific individuals that suffered too because they caught someone's eye, but large-scale was a thing they did a lot."

"I wonder why."

"I mean my brother's got some theories but honestly I don't care as much. It's a thing they do, and they should stop."

"Well - I won't argue there."

Zevi smiles a little. "I like you. You're pretty cool. I might just blanket that towards all witches and maybe be like, 'I should have been this, I would be way happier' or something."

"Well, if you were, your brother wouldn't have any magic, which he seems pretty attached to, but perhaps you'll get the best of both worlds. So to speak."

"Yeah, him not having magic would suck. He likes it a lot. So I guess this works out alright, I'm glad he's happy. Best of both worlds would be great, though!"

"I recommend making a good impression on the queen."

"I'm not quite sure how to do that, but I guess I can try. How do I make a good impression? Adarin's not here to give me cheat sheets on people, so you get to stand in for him."

"Well - she's a queen. So, be respectful, and polite. She won't like it if there are secrets kept from her, either. And if her daemon is present at the time your Lecasryn should talk to him."

"Her daemon might be somewhere else. If you're going to pass for a witch and hold up to any scrutiny you'll need to separate."

"Adarin managed it, right? Then I'll probably be fine. It sounds bad, but I've been through bad things before. What does it involve?"

"Walking away. A few hundred yards tends to do it. There's a sort of wasteland, very far north, where daemons can't go, and that makes it easier, but it's not necessary."

"Eh, okay. I might poke my brother for tips first because he knows me and will know what would help me out."

"That makes sense."

"Yeah. He's pretty good at translating things for me. Like for half of our childhood he was slipping me magic notes because he could teach me better than the people who were trying to."

"Magic notes? Are these notes about magic, or notes that are themselves magic?"

"Notes about magic. Like rather than using big fancy words he'd switch to explaining concepts and it would all just make sense."

"Your kind of magic seems very different from witchcraft. I wonder if any of it even applies across systems or if it would be like trying to use - color theory to predict the weather."