Mrs. Carson sighs. "The meta-gene complex, which causes powers, crops up in about 0.002% of the population of the United States, the country we are currently in. There are not reliable worldwide statistics, because most of the world is less tolerant of mutants than we are. However, not everyone with the meta-gene complex will manifest so much as a low-level Exemplar trait; conversely, a baseline with sufficient dedication could train herself in magic until she was the next Circe. Ballpark, I would say that for every fifty thousand humans, there is someone with terrifying powers they cannot hope to resist."

"Well, that's I suppose better than the alternative. ...what's your total world population?"

"About seven point one billion."

"Holy shiz."

Mrs. Carson suppresses a smile. "Your world has fewer people, I'm guessing?"

"I mean, we don't have a—oh, census, that's an interesting word, I like it—but yeah, at a guess."

"We do have a census! It's very convenient for statistics. Does your world have a name?"

"The planet is called Galatea. The continent, too, for some reason."

"Huh. Is it the only continent with people on it?"

"Used to be people on the northernmost continent, there's some on the continent to the west, various scattered islands but no one can get to the northern hemisphere and the continent is the biggest livable landmass."

"I see. Well, our planet is called Earth - not very creative, but at the time it was being named people didn't think we would be making introductions. I apologize for the circumstances of your arrival; we usually try not to kidnap people from their worlds. Mr. Halliwell will be appropriately disciplined for doing so, and we will make every effort to return you as soon as possible."

"...but I'll be able to come back here if I want to? And you guys will be able to visit? Because, uh, interuniversal contact sounds like it would be pretty darn great for our planets. Well, mine, at least, for sure." She points at the telephone. "That thing isn't magic and he still managed to talk to—someone—you?—through it, we don't have anything like that, that'd be revolutionary."

"He was talking to my secretary, actually," Mrs. Carson says. "We can certainly send you back with some of our technology. Or if you wanted to stay in our world for a longer period of time so you could learn about it, that can be arranged. Reliable transit between worlds is actually very expensive to accomplish, Mr. Halliwell's experimental results notwithstanding, so we wouldn't be able to visit or summon casually."

"Expensive how?"

"It requires the time and energy of a highly experienced wizard and consumes a significant quantity of expensive resources, mostly mithril, which costs about ten thousand dollars per ounce. - a day laborer receives on average fifteen dollars per hour worked."

"Oh, huh, it's expensive in money, that's too bad."

"How so?"

"My schtick is metamagic so stuff that's expensive in magic can get less expensive if I help with it. I wouldn't have expected it to naively work with a different world's magic, if I'd ever given the question any thought, but I can see your magic and his magic," she says, hiking a thumb in Morty's direction, "clear as day. And I managed to stop your spell. So."

"I don't have magic," Morty objects, looking up from a device he's been tapping at idly.

"She might be referring to your Devisor trait," Mrs. Carson says thoughtfully. "That has... a lot of potential applications. If you turn out to be able to reduce the magical cost of spells then you could be extremely helpful to any number of large-scale projects; wizards are loath to part with significant amounts of Essence, even for a good cause. And if you can somehow alter mutant traits, you would be among the most powerful people in the world. Though I wouldn't recommend trying. Altering mutant traits has historically been hideously dangerous."

"So for what it's worth I don't make a habit of messing with magic without understanding it very thoroughly because even at home this can have some bad effects. Just stopping magical effects typically doesn't, except for the directly causal relationships—like, if I disrupt all the magic keeping a floating chair afloat it will... stop floating." She shrugs. "Obviously. I can also convert between the three different types of magical resources from back home but I can't generate any, the main way I get, or used to get, any, back home, was by draining batteries and some old artefacts before handing them over to the Explorers' Guild."

"Not messing with magic you don't understand is a good policy," Mrs. Carson says drily. "At any rate, it sounds like you want to stay here for a time and learn about our world's technology and magic, is that correct?"

"If it wouldn't be terribly inconvenient. I can make myself useful to pay for it, even not taking the magic into account."

"It wouldn't be inconvenient at all, no. This is actually a school of, among other things, magic and technology. And we don't need you to pay for it; we consider ourselves to be in your debt for having summoned you out of your world in the first place, and will happily provide for whatever you need while you're here. Would you like to relocate to my office for your intake interview?"

"Oh. Uh, sure, that sounds good to me."

"Mortimer, before I forget, you'll be having detention in Hawthorne for a month, and I want you back with your therapist until you can work out some way to stop yourself from doing ill-advised things when you're having an episode. If that means getting Mr. Conway to physically pin you to the ground every time you get near a sheet of cardboard unless you can explain what you're doing with it, then you do that. Are we clear?"

Morty grimaces. "Yes, ma'am."

"Excellent." There's a flash of blue light, and Kaede and Mrs. Carson are standing in a small but well-furnished office. She sits down behind a mahogany desk, and gestures toward a chair opposite for Kaede to do the same. "First of all, how old are you exactly?"