"Apparently it takes some people a while but if you pay attention to patterns in your assignments and void spells it'll present itself sooner or later. I know mine's in artificing because there are some hard things I found easier than some easy things, but I don't know what about them made the difference yet with only a couple examples."

He nods.

"—yeah, I've had a couple things like that. But I wasn't supposed to be doing any of them, so I dunno if it was just spite and hormones."

"What were they?"

"Some metalworking stuff, some tattoos I wasn't supposed to get."

And a couple of really stupid casts with no mana, but he's smart enough not to say that in front of a stranger, at least.

"You?"

"Mum gave me some clothworm eggs to make beads out of, or try to, and those came out, even though the week before I hadn't been able to cast a little protection spell I was trying to do for myself instead of getting Dad to do it for me before I went to school."