"Makes sense."

So Margaret goes back to spell design. This one is going to be a lot more complicated and also bigger, which means it needs to be even more complicated to compensate for the size.

Ismat orders dinner from the bar and watches her.

Eventually Margaret finishes the algebra part (she misses Bella and her spreadsheet). "When you're done eating, would you like to learn to draw diagrams? I could set you up with a simpler one, or you could do the one I'm doing in parallel and we'd have two tries if the first incantation I test doesn't work."

"I hadn't better actually do anything while my family doesn't know where I am and I'm in a strange time-dilated pocket dimension, suppose I didn't make it to Axis? But I can receive a lesson without any practicals."

"That makes a lot of sense. I've never heard of anyone getting hurt from drawing a diagram someone else used, but this place is weird and it's very reasonable not to want to. I'll just explain what I'm doing so you'll know for later. So, it doesn't matter what order you draw in as long as you don't smudge anything; personally I like to start at the top edge and go down for something this big and center-outwards for the smaller ones . . ." 

Ismat watches her very intently.

The hardest part of doing a big diagram is always keeping her mind from wandering, so having someone to narrate her diagram-related stream of consciousness to is pretty nice, and a lot of it is stuff she already has prepped from teaching classes on it, so it won't slow her down much. Eventually she runs out of relevant stuff to say before she runs out of diagram, and keeps drawing quietly.

Ismat has been taking notes! When she thinks she recognizes something she asks about it.

Margaret is happy to confirm and elaborate on things, and occasionally thinks of tips that don't usually come up when she's lecturing on simpler diagrams.