"… Like a stapler, or a loaf of bread, or a chair…?"

"Let's go with 'make something float without dropping it.'"

"Ah," she says. "I can try?"

So she tries it.

Tries what, exactly?

"That seems to be a no."

Evelyn looks at him curiously, then a moment later – "Ugh."

"No but wait. Just. Like. Focus on it? A lot? We can chant again."

"That was more to snap her out of whatever. Maybe I should try an actual snap next time."

Eyeroll. "Okay, so chant?"

Chant.

She tries to drop the keys and make them hover, again! (Focusing on the chanting, because that could be useful.)

Isn't that piece of lint so interesting looking?

When she doesn't seem to be doing it, Theo tries poking her.

"– Hm?" Pause. "Okay, ugh."

Try again?

The piece of lint continues to be very interesting.

…

What's also very interesting is that someone is chanting about the current situation, though, so she can just– drop the key.

She can! And it will fail to be dropped and actually float there. And the longer it stays that way, the harder it is to not just regard it as completely uninteresting and undeserving of any note.

It'll drop again not too long after, in that case. She'll go study the mightily interesting wall instead.

"So did it work?"

"Yeah," says Theo. "It definitely hovered longer that time."

Evelyn turns to him as he speaks – then sighs again and picks up the key.

"Okay so you can make stuff float. That's actually pretty rad." She grabs the pen, and puts it on her hand palm up. "Make this float from here?"

This all feels extremely ridiculous – magic, extremely weird – but she does try.

It is not significantly harder than making the key float.

Then it's not all that long until she starts staring at dust motes again.