"Mmm." Ma'ar rolls and unrolls the edge of the bedcover, looking down.

...isn't that good news? She waits to see if he'll say anything.

Finally he looks up at her. "I don't want them to not be allowed to learn magic. I just wish... I wish they hadn't been stupid. If Conn were smart he'd have known the spell would explode and he wouldn't've done it."

"I mean, yes, it would be better if they hadn't been stupid, but since they were, that's some reason to think they might keep being stupid."

"I know." Shrug. "I wish I thought them getting lectured would fix it but I think it's probably harder than that to fix people being careless about magic."

"What do you think would fix it?"

"- If they knew they'd die if they messed up? I - think that's why I know to be careful." He shakes his head. "But I can't just - do that to everyone. And you're careful even though you haven't almost died a lot. What made you be careful?"

"I guess that's a good question. I like getting things right? And - winning, even if it's sometimes at contests I make up that nobody else is really trying to play."

"I have a feeling those boys like winning too, but to them 'winning' means getting away with being mean to people."

"Well, then they lost."

That gets a little bit of a smile from him. "Guess so. Anyway, I think I'll take the illusion class with you this session. Could I borrow your notes to catch up on the first week?"

"Of course!" She has them with her. She attempts to play a little joke where they look blank when she hands them over but it's VERY hard and does not work.

Ma'ar does notice the attempt and it gets a chuckle from him and a broader smile, before he starts reading through the notes.

She has some academic homework which would not have interested Skan in the slightest left to do and she picks that up.

Her notes are, as usual, very clear and helpful. Ma'ar asks a few questions and tries out the illusion challenge they got as homework, trying to make his hand appear a different color. He finds it very hard, but he's persistent.

When she's done with her assigned reading she looks up to see if she can take her notes back yet.

Yep! Ma'ar has finished copying them into a spare notebook that the Healer must have given him, since his school things are mostly back in his room which is very thoroughly warded against intruders. His handwriting is messier than usual since he's writing with the wrong hand, but it's legible.

He thanks her politely and yawns again.

"Have a good nap!"

The next day she keeps an eye out for him in class.

He's there! It's the artifact class, which inconveniently he also missed the first day of, since it was first thing in the morning on the day Azabel got back from her trip and he was in the hospital. They can get notes off a classmate, though, and the teacher is content to accept both of their reasons for absence and will let them submit the first class's homework next week instead.

Ma'ar continues to write notes more messily than usual, since his broken arm is still bound up and he's writing with his non-dominant hand, but when they're handed out blank quartz crystals for a practice exercises, it doesn't seem to affect his casting at all.

That's because waving your arms at stuff to do magic to it is kind of silly. (It's good for dramatic effect and for keeping some parts of spells you are first learning located outside your mind while it's still hard to juggle, like notetaking with the position of your arm, but otherwise it's silly.) What will they be doing with this quartz today?

They are supposed to make them glow! Specifically they're supposed to cast the basic semi-permanent mage-light spell, which was covered in the first class - Ma'ar and Azabel can get an explanation from the teacher and some help from their seat-neighbor. Today's additional exercise is to practice altering just the part of the spell that does the color, without redoing the rest.

She would like hers to be..... gold.

It's very fiddly to change juuuuust that piece without destabilizing the rest of the set-spell structure, unless you're very very good the semi-permanent one is brittle, but after a few failed attempts she can make her light change from white to gold without going out!

Ma'ar isn't as good at fiddly and delicate magic, and is still patiently attempting it when the class ends. To be fair only two people other than Azabel were able to get it, and both of them are older with more months of total schooling behind them and were there at the first class.

The teacher tells the rest not to be discouraged, they can keep working on it as homework and they won't be behind as long as they can demonstrate it successfully at the beginning of next class.

She will continue to try to change it to different colors (green! blue! purple! silver!) to make sure she has it really down, in her downtime.