"Yes, of course." She is mostly competent to navigate back to their rooms at this point, and set some fish cooking on the little cooking element. "How was it?"

"I learned to write Tantaran letters and she gave me an easy book to practice reading. I don't think she thinks I'm stupid? I can't tell because she shields. But at least I'm not really behind the rest of the class." He sits down and rubs his forehead. 

"Is the headache from too much Thoughtsensing, you think?"

"I don't know? But it was hurting worse when there were more people." 

"You know how when we met you weren't using your Thoughtsensing? I think you ought to be able to do that on and off as you like, and then you can avoid doing it around lots of people."

He scrunches up his face. "I...don't know if I know how to stop doing it on purpose. I guess I can try." 

"I am pretty sure it's possible but I don't personally know how it's done, sorry."

Ma'ar nods, and keeps trying different ways of getting his Thoughtsensing to go away; he's a bit nervous it'll go away too much and he won't have it in the morning when he has magic lessons, but he figured it out last time, probably he could again. 

After supper he gets out his practice-book, which on each pair of pages has one simple sentence in big writing and then a picture next to it. He effortfully sounds out some of the sentences, but he still has a lingering headache and is also very tired. When the sunset ends and the stars come out, though, he's nonetheless captivated for a few minutes. 

Hug. 

In the morning Ma'ar sits at their little dining table by the window and nibbles on bread. "- I'm scared," he admits finally to Carissa. "About magic lessons. I know it's stupid to be because it won't help..." 

"Are you scared about anything specific? Are you scared you'll do badly? That it'll be tiring or not fun?"

"It doesn't matter if it's tiring or not fun. I - I was reading someone's mind in the dining hall yesterday and they were upset because they made a mistake and their teacher was mad, and - what if I do that and they hurt me - they'd be so much stronger than me at magic if they're a teacher, they could, I couldn't do anything." 

" - this place seems Good so I bet the teachers are not allowed to hurt the students much even if they're angry. If they do, you'll be able to handle it, because you have had a harder life than most of these students so a punishment that would seem severe to them probably won't be too unbearable for you. Not fighting back when you're being hurt is also an important skill and ideally you wouldn't learn it at school but you will have to learn it eventually, sometimes it is the best way to achieve your strategic objectives. We could practice it if you really want to, though I suspect it's not the best way to spend the evening because you have been through a lot and need to sleep so you're well-rested tomorrow."

He nods, and leans in for a hug. Putting off sleeping because it'll make it be tomorrow sooner is in fact objectively silly, it'll be tomorrow in the same length of time either way, he'll just be more or less tired. He can go to bed, carefully hanging up his student robe first so it won't be wrinkled in the morning. 

She'll hold him while he falls asleep again and then get some more work done on his headband.

Ma'ar's morning mage-lessons are actually outdoors, with a landmark given for where they're supposed to meet. It's pretty easy to find; the giant obsidian statue of a gryphon is very memorable and visible from that entire side of the tower. 

The teacher is a cheerful middle-aged man with snow-white hair in a knot. He doesn't speak the Predain language well but he clarifies that he can understand Ma'ar, and Ma'ar in turn is picking up enough Tantaran to mostly follow. (If he supplements with mindreading, that is.) 

She'll wish him luck and then head off to her appointment with Urtho. 

Urtho meets her at the door of his office, but immediately steps out into the hall. "Follow me? I wanted to use my workshop for this." 

"Of course." He seems so good-natured and she has absolutely no idea what it takes to change that and it's terrifying. Leareth likes him. ...Leareth was a tiny child who must have made this whole journey alone, in the original timeline...

Urtho's magic workshop is tidier than his office, if only because paper is flammable; the clutter is restricted to non-flammable objects, mostly magic ones. There are several half-built artifacts on a table, and another table of various knickknacks, which Urtho carelessly pushes to one side. He offers Carissa a stool. 

"So. I am honestly not quite sure where to begin, here! If you do not have other ideas, perhaps you could oblige me by demonstrating some spells?" 

"Of course. We rate our spells by circles, it's a measure of how complex the spell is - more complex ones require more skill and more channeling capacity to cast, because at the peak you've got to be feeding all of them - I can do up through fourth, I'll cast them and you'll be able to see -"

She does Silent Image and then Minor Image and then Major Image and then an Extended Major Image, so it's easy to compare across them.

Urtho grins and bounces like a little boy for the third and fourth. "Amazing! It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful." He's trying to sketch out the structure of Extended Major Image on a big sheet of paper. 

"I also have a teleport prepared at fourth level, with a range of about a fifth of a mile, and Tongues and Fly and Fireball and Phantom Steed at third, and Invisibility at second," and Detect Thoughts but she's not saying so, "and I cast Mage Armor on me and on Ma'ar in the mornings. My magic items are, uh, a mix of both styles."

"You can fly?" Urtho looks so amazed and impressed! "It is extremely hard to do that with our magic! Anyway, I certainly do not want to demand all of your spells for demonstration purposes, if you want to save them for later, but I remain very curious about all of them."