"Game theory is fun. It was invented by John Von Neumann who was Hungarian, like us, from Budapest where Mari lives. He was a mathematician who was trying to understand strategic behavior — games, economics, diplomacy, politics, everything. He solved the easy case of two person zero sum games like rock-paper-scissors and two player poker and  chess and then spent the rest of the book trying to solve the general problem.

"That was almost a hundred years ago and nobody else has yet. He did lots of other things too, the math for computers and quantum mechanics and I don't know what else, but game theory is the only part I've read and only the first two chapters. The book you want is The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by Von Neumann and Morgenstern but someone told Apa that Mergenstern's part was making sure that Von Neumann worked on the book for two hours a day. There are other books about game theory if you can't find that one and there might be books here about using it in spell construction — I don't know anything about that."

While Ellen is going on about game theory, Mari is looking carefully over the bookshelves. She reaches up, pulls a book off the shelf, hands it to Masozi.

It is The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by Von Neumann and Morgenstern.

Masozi is listening to her with rapt amazement! There are so many words and phrases there that he doesn't, actually, recognize - but some of them it feels like he almost recognizes them, not in the sense of having ever actually seen it before, but... "two person zero sum games", as a phrase - he recognizes all of the words there and he can almost, almost, jump straight to the structure they're pointing at, but not quite - 

(He is also quietly noting down all the names she's mentioning, and then the title as she says it, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, and then -)

Masozi is very drawn into Ellen's description, but not quite so much that he fails to notice Mari's movements, and he's already turning to smile and thank her - warmly, but confusedly - and accept the book as she holds it out. 

Wait. 

"- How did you find that? I thought you didn't know where the math books were and that's why you were asking me?" 

"I think the divining affinity helps. Or maybe I was lucky. Ellen was too busy talking about the book to look for it and you were watching out for mals so I didn't have to, so I thought I might as well look."

She smiles at him. She has a very nice smile.

"If there is anything you don't understand you can come talk to me about it at dinner. I haven't found anyone here to talk math with yet, the way I do with Apa."

"Thank you," Masozi says to Ellen, and then turns back to Mari. "

Wow! You have a - divining affinity -" Masozi pronounces this word very carefully, in the way of someone who has heard it spoken only a handful of times, "- and it helps you find books?" 

He accepts the book from her, and then resists the temptation to immediately start ignoring both of them in order to read it (while still sparing enough attention to check for mals, of course, but he can't read and listen to a conversation and check for mals all at the same time.) 

"Thank you," he says, swinging his somewhat decrepit backpack down from his shoulders in order to tuck the book away safely. "Do you want me to show you where I thought I saw the numerology books before?" 

And if they talk game theory when Balog is there, maybe he will notice that they are talking his language long enough to stop being mad at everyone.

"I think I divine where I am going to find it and then I do; I could sometimes find things in the enclave that other people couldn't. Father said that after I graduated I could help him look for the gates to Pest and maybe one of our people could figure out how to get in."

"Yes, please."

Masozi nods, and then pauses and does a more thorough check for mals - burning some mana in the process, but it seems worth it, right now, to protect someone who might end up being a friend and who can use her affinity to find books. 

He gestures in the direction and then starts walking, leading the way. 

"- What's the Pest? Why are their gates to it?" It sounds...bad. At least if he's correctly remembering what the English word 'Pest' means. 

"Pest is the lost enclave, the other side of the river from Buda. They had a horrible internal fight long before we were born and everyone died — there is a story that the last survivor gave up wizardry and became a monk — and nobody knows how to get in."

Masozi keeps walking in the direction he had planned, and keeps checking for mals because you'd have to be stupid not to, but on some purely mental level he freezes for several seconds. 

"....They - what happened? Why would - if you had an enclave then - there's so much you could lose if you messed up - why would anyone even participate in a fight that might, might threaten that....?"

"They got most of their people killed in the '48 rising, didn't want to bring in a whole lot of foreign wizards and eventually  decided getting back up was taking too long. So they had one of their wizards — probably several, but the stories have it as one — go around Budapest seducing women and getting them pregnant. If the kid was mundane they let the mother think it was her husband's. If the kid was a wizard — they had ways of telling at two or three years — they stole it and raised it in the enclave.

"It worked for a while — they must have been awful busy raising the kids. But the seniors and their kids tried to keep control and eventually the Janissaries rebelled. I think maybe one side locked the other out at some point and when it was over everyone was dead, or at least nobody alive knew how to get back in. I don't expect anyone expected it to end that way. Probably both sides thought they would win and could put things back the way they wanted them.

"The story gets told, at least in Buda, as a horrible example of how not to run an enclave. If my Magical Conflict class or Ellen's Calamities covers it we might learn how outsiders see it."

Ellen is listening, fascinated.

"Apa and Anya never told me about that."

Masozi feels like someone MAYBE COULD HAVE PREDICTED that this was a strategy that would eventually lead to a stupid fight! 

"Does anyone know for sure there's even still an enclave attached to the gates? Do enclaves - stay there, even if no one's using them or fixing things in them?" Masozi's knowledge about enclaves mostly starts and ends with 'they exist'. 

"I don't know, but my father thinks so. We aren't sure if the story about the gates is true or if they got left open and mals destroyed everything a long time ago. The stories claim Pest is still there and full of treasure, including an anti-aging potion the seniors were supposedly working on that had something to do with the rebellion, but father says you should never trust a historical anecdote that's good enough to survive on its literary merit.

"What we are interested in isn't treasure but room. Buda is getting crowded and expansion is expensive. If we could get into Pest and link them ..."

"Can you do that? Take two enclaves and stick them together to make one bigger enclave?" 

Here are the numerology books! 

"Great. Thank you."

Ellen starts looking over the book shelves, pulling out books written in Latin or German. No Magyar books yet.

"I don't think enclaves have their own personalities, the way artifice does, so if we could build a portal linking them — I think the transatlantic portal that New York and London built is between their enclaves, although I'm not sure — or just a tunnel under the river I don't see why we couldn't treat it as one enclave. Maybe rename the enclave Budapest, like the city.

"But I don't know of anyone who has ever done it."

"I wonder if the library has books about how enclaves are made?" Masozi bounces slightly at the thought. "- Oh, actually, if you know where the books on artifice are, I was looking for something on how to make good mana storage." 

"I don't know where any books are but Apa showed me how to make a pendant for mana storage last year and I made one, although it's not as good as the ones he made. If we go down to the workshop I expect I could show you how. It has to be something you feel comfortable wearing, as if it belongs to you, but I can't make anything very big. Is there any sort of jewelry you would like — a pendant, or a ring, or a bracelet, or ... Anything people where you come from wear? You can make the shape of it whatever you like when you carve the wax."

"There is a book on how the first enclaves were made, but it's been lost for centuries. Modern enclaves take a whole lot of spells, more than one book's worth, and floods of mana. There might be something talking about it but not doing it, if you want me to look."

That was a much more generous offer of help than Masozi was expecting! 

"I think maybe I would want to make a design of that math spiral? The one that you get from the Fibonacci Sequence and drawing squares on graph paper. But I should probably ask the leader of Shanghai if he thinks it's safe to just go down to the workshop or whether I need to go with other people."  

"The spiral idea should work; if there are any mals, you and Mari can spot them and I can burn them. But if you want to check with someone and maybe bring more people I suppose that would be even safer."

"Much safer."

She turns back to Masozi.

"After you talk with Lan Xichen you can find us at breakfast and make plans. There may be other people who will want to come.

"Besides, you and Ellen have books you have to start reading before they decide to vanish on you and I still have to find a dictionary."

"I'll help you look for the German section; I have enough books for tonight."

She smiles at Masozi.

"And you have enough for a week or two if it doesn't vanish on you. Maybe longer."

The two girls go off into the stacks, Ellen looking curiously at the books as she passes them.

"Okay!" 

That was...nice. Masozi isn't sure if he's quite managed to make friends but he's at least made some acquaintances. And now he doesn't have to keep hunting for books on making mana storage. 

He heads off, protectively clutching his copy of The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.