"It did cost a hundred gold! Also some more gold after that."

"Would've sounded like a pretty wild amount to me too. My mom was actually a sorcerer too but didn't level far and didn't have the business sense to do much with it, plus her family took most of what she did earn."

"And men can't work?"

"Oh, my dad worked too but he died when I was pretty young so it wasn't a major factor in household finances that I can actually remember. Also he wasn't a caster so he didn't earn his wife a caster's income."

He nods. "We were unusually poor, a lot of boys stay in school until they're twelve and do an apprenticeship after that."

"Mahdi stayed in school until he was twenty but that's because learning to read was very hard for him."

"Yes, that's why." He makes sparks fly menacingly between his fingers.

"Well, congratulations on your persistence."

"Hagan can't read at all."

"In my homeland reading is scorned as an evil art. It's believed that when you read words they vanish from your internal monologue and then you can never think them again."

"...huh."

" - he's lying. If that wasn't clear."

"Oh, now we don't approve of lying."

"I figured, just momentarily I entertained the scenario and it's the exact opposite of me."

"You learn words reading them?"

"Well, yes, but also I write things down to think about them."

"I'd worry about someone spying on me."

"Yeah, I worry about that too. I have a cipher and in extreme cases secret page."

And the flying carpet returns to the city.

"You're sticking around, right?"

"Sure, if you want me along."

"I want you along because my friends are lawful humorless stick-in-the-muds. Or at least one of those things."

"We'd be grateful for your help, if you're interested."

"I'm in. When do we go and how long should I pack for?"

"Once we've done the scrying we'll have a better guess about where, but it'll probably be within a hundred miles of here. I'd pack for a month."