"Oh, okay. I can drop one half of my pair here tomorrow?"

"Sure."

"Bye, then!"

Off he goes back to his room to stare at the various wizardry things until he falls asleep.

The sun rises in the morning.

And he wakes up and gets dressed, and brushes his teeth, and—

<Keo?>

<Yes?>

<It occurred to me yesterday that I might be able to break the summoning spell, except when I tried to touch a piece of link paper I got the strangest sensation that it would kill me if I did.>

<Link paper is not generally fatal on contact; what do you mean?>

<Does this channel support bouncing memories? I'm—not keen to repeat that particular experiment.>

<I can find a memory you want me to look at.>

<Me looking at link paper in Kaylo's room. Oh, and also looking at the ward in Saasnil's.>

<Well, that's interesting but I don't have any interpretive advantages over you there.>

<Yeah, I just thought someone else should know and you probably know enough wizardry there might have been something you'd have noticed. I think I might go study some wizardry theory to see what I can come up with.>

<I'm not aware of anything explaining this off the top of my head in academic wizarding theory, but be my guest.>

<It's mostly to think of any other things to look at. I still have no idea how exactly CCs work or why they're discrete and I couldn't watch the magic do its thing.>

<You might want to look at someone who has a familiar.>

<Yeah, was planning on doing that, too, as well as looking at someone in the process of getting a familiar. Do you know anyone who does and wouldn't mind being stared at?>

<Some of the teachers. I'm not sure how long you'd mean to stare at them. Getting a familiar involves casting a spell and would probably be too fast for you to see like the other spells.>

<I'm not sure how long, either, but wizardry seems—pretty comprehensible, relatively speaking. And the part I'd try to look at in the spell is where the extra CC comes from, and how, I might be able to catch that.>

<I'll try to remember to tell you next time a student acquires a familiar.>

<Thank you! Oh and, two other things: one, can I look at your magic at some point? I'm trying to figure dragon magic out, and I'm at the point where there'll be more gains from variety than from just looking at Kaylo. And two, is Korulen free to take me shopping again today? I wanna look at potions and see whether those are ambiguously sentient and want to kill me.>

<Korulen's free for two angles after lunch and again in the evening. You didn't get a good enough look at me earlier?>

<Not really. I need some time, and also you are the metamancer equivalent of looking at the sun.>

<Does that mean short doses?>

<No, mostly different metaphorical angles and squinting. And from what I gather magic is less idiosyncratic here so I expect it'll be similar to what I already got from Kaylo.>