"There's some powers you need an eidetic memory to have," says Nika. "Epic can make magic things that do that but it takes weeks even if he doesn't sleep. ...Can you actually not sleep or was that a figure of speech."

"I don't have to sleep. But yeah, I could do it if I worked nonstop for three weeks sidereal which is ten weeks subjective at the top acceleration and it wouldn't be very interesting either, and if runecasting can do it at all it'll be faster."

"And therefore it would potentially be convenient to give me the magical powers since I already have an eidetic memory? What specific kind of eidetic memory is required? Mine is visual and auditory."

"There're a lot of spell symbols and you have to keep them all straight I actually don't know if that'd do it or if you'd have to watch them scroll in front of you every time or something weird like that."

"Are there potential unpleasant accidents if my memory isn't up to the challenge?"

"No, if you don't have all the symbols exactly nothing'd happen."

"Then I suppose I am willing to try it, if the magical powers are useful - what are they?"

"We're not just giving them out to anyone who might find a use for them. If Nika thinks it's important then you can have them. But, uh, I can teleport with a range of anywhere in this dimension or any of its neighbors and can take any things smaller than a planet with me, I can heal people - touch-range - turn them into birds - also touch-range - go invisible and inaudible or make things invisible and inaudible, do illusions, fix Nika being clumsy once I read that one which I never got around to..."

"Who exactly is 'we'?"

"Epic was stranded here in a transportation accident, and is currently the only available representative of the group," says Cordelia.

"It's mostly alternate universe versions of my dad's kingdom and Bells."

"I'm a Bell."

"I'm unfortunately too busy to make good use of most of those, but if the supply of touch-range healing magic is that short, expanding it seems like a very high priority indeed. If it's any good. I assume it is?"

"It did something positive for Miles. We haven't yet found out exactly what. Instead of getting the spells yourself, you could help us research magic so that we can attempt to uncover or design an eidetic memory spell that takes less than several weeks to produce, and then we can distribute touch-range healing to as many trustworthy people as we like."

"I would like you to find out exactly what it did for Miles. But yes, all right, let's research magic."

"I'll have to beg his forgiveness if I send him to the doctor instead of including him in the research when he gets here."

"Also the doctor should maybe not know about magic and how else would you explain it?"

"Some doctor will have to be told about magic in order for us to find out what the healing spell did for Miles, and Miles's doctors will have to be told something if it turns out that what the healing spell did for Miles was make him entirely healthy. I'm sure I can find some sort of reasonable solution."

"What was wrong with him?"

"He has, or perhaps had, extremely fragile bones because of something that happened while I was pregnant with him. It's also why he's unusually small for his age."

"Yeah, it would probably have fixed that."

"We'll see."