"Guess he's been busy, and he was trying to give you your vacation before hassling you more. If you are up for explaining it at some point, though, I'm sure he'd appreciate that." Chuckle. "And he'd understand it better than I will." 

"I could probably explain sorcery without it being a huge drag now."

"I'm glad to hear that! Leareth wants to talk to you eventually about, well, plans, but he thinks it's not urgent and you should get as much break as you want first." 

"Plans for...?"

"He's thinking about whether we have the strength to fight Thorn and get all the others vassals out, Thorn sounds awful. And - he wants your help, here in Velgarth. With the gods, and - seeing if your ability to order them around means he can just go ahead and spread a lot of innovation around without getting murdered about it. And some politics, I suspect, but he'd be the one to explain details." 

"Thorn is awful," confirms Promise. "Discussing how awful Thorn is might want to wait longer than generally discussing sorcery."

"Figured that'd be the case." Sapphire gives her a sympathetic look. "Leareth's not going to push it, just - thought you should know that's something he's willing to attempt. He has a lot of resources. Anyway, you need anything else tonight?" 

"No, thanks."

Sapphire heads down.

Leareth's people go back to mostly leaving her alone, except that people occasionally wander over on their breaks to check on her garden's progress, and Sapphire and Leaf continue trading off on asking if she still needs supper.

Also does she want some books, once her tree is big enough for bookshelves? Leareth can have copies made if any in the library take her fancy. 

She would love some books. She identifies ones she likes enough to want to look at again eventually.

Leareth has copies made for her! They're high-quality copies, with long-lasting preservation magic on them.

Leareth doesn't otherwise initiate other interactions with her, other than courteous greetings whenever they're in the same room. 

"Somebody said you'd want to talk about sorcery," she says at one point when she's in the facility to gather up her drawings and spots him.

"Oh? Yes, Sapphire mentioned you were starting to tell her something about 'harmonics', and she was not following it at all but thought I would be interested. I certainly am. I had not wanted to push you for anything non-urgent, but I think our magics must have very different origins, and I am curious." 

"They seem different, yeah. Sorcery doesn't need a 'power source', for one."

"Hmm. Does it need a power source in the same sense that humans need to eat food in order to have the strength to walk, or even less than that?" 

"I don't really know how humans need to eat food in order to have the strength to walk."

"What happens to fairies if you have no food to eat for weeks or months?" 

"It makes it hard to do anything? Especially anything fast or precise. And it makes us sleepy, and slower to heal injuries."

"Humans have not-dissimilar symptoms, except we eventually sicken and die of it. Anyway, for humans with Gift, the energy for said Gifts comes from a similar process to the one that lets us eat food and then do physical labour. Starvation will directly sap a mage's reserves for casting spells." 

"Huh. That sounds inconvenient. I guess a lot of things about being mortal sound inconvenient."

"That is very true." 

"Anyway, sorcery isn't like that. I'm curious if fairies can run out of reserves but I guess we can't find out because fairies aren't mages."

"Hmm." Leareth looks thoughtful. Seems to spend a little while deciding whether to voice his thought. "...Can fairies and mortals bear children together?" he asks, finally. "I am wondering if a half-fairy, half-human mage, could have both mage-gift and your immortality." 

"I don't really know a lot about how breeding kinds work."

Nod. "Anyway, that is a fascinating digression, but I meant to ask you about harmonics."