"What else can you do?" she asks, rearranging herself more comfortably in the canoe.

"I have a very generally powerful magic which takes time to accomplish anything complicated. I can closely examine the properties of myself and anything I touch; I can move or create things with some difficulty, copy or alter things more easily, and destroy things even more easily than that; using this boat, which I built using creation and alteration magic, I can fly and teleport, and also move between worlds but that functionality is poorly tested and may be flawed. I have assorted other capabilities that are harder to succinctly describe and which I have very little practice with."

"- so the way you were talking to me earlier isn't exactly mindreading?"

"I copied a communication power. It only transmits what is voluntarily sent, in either direction."

"Okay. Good. ...could you get a cutting of my tree -?"

"Yes, if you can clearly describe its location and surroundings to me."

"It's got leaves the shape of my wings but smaller - when I left it was nearly a hundred feet high, probably hasn't grown that much since then - it's in a forest where it's always autumn and usually afternoon, a half hour's flight from a river - is this helping -"

"Yes. A sent image would also help; an approximate direction and distance from here or from the place where I found you would help as well."

She's got the image, vivid and beloved, huge tree with its branches all afruit with haws and hanging heavy over a clearing scattered with fallen leaves from its neighbors - "It's north of where you found me, maybe a little west, a bit more than a day's flight."

"I can go to your tree and retrieve a branch. I don't expect to take more than a minute or two. Would you prefer to come along or stay here? On the way there I will need to spend a moment in the sky above the place where I found you, to orient myself, but on the way back I can teleport here directly from your tree."

"I don't want to get near Thorn's court. Not even if I put my ears out and turn invisible."

"Yes, I thought so. In that case, I can go as soon as you are out of the boat."

She flutters out.

He teleports to the sky above the place where he found her, high enough that the air is uncomfortably thin - he glances over the side of the boat - he teleports to above her tree, same elevation - he teleports down so that an extended branch is hanging over the boat - he erases part of the base of the branch so that the rest of it falls into the boat - he teleports back to Promise. It takes about fifteen seconds total.

...she takes the branch and basically hugs it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"...so what were you doing there in the first place?"

"I am trying to get back to my own world after being stranded in a different one. I don't have a way to go there directly, but I have a way to move between worlds at random and I think I have a way to backtrack to worlds I have already visited. My first jump landed me in that room with you; I haven't tested backtracking yet and I don't want to until I am sure there is nothing more I can do here, in case backtracking fails and I end up stranded again with no way to return."

"...I can make gates. I only know of them going to the mortal world though, and thought there was only one of it."

"There are at least three worlds and probably four if the world containing mortals you expect not to have any magic is separate from this one."

"I think it's separate. I could try to gate wherever you're trying to go anyway in case it works though."

"I would appreciate that very much."

"...I should see what's around here to see if it's a good place to plant my tree and make a gate."

He nods.

She goes for a flight around the vicinity, clutching her branch.