"Sure, I'll let you watch when I put down the runes for my first draft and try my poem."
He smiles, then says, "Thank you. If you'd want to be there for when I do my spell, you're invited, as well."
"Will do." Isabella eats the last of her oatmeal, then plunks her drafting notebook onto the kitchen table and starts working on it, Path whispering helpfully in her ear.
Adarin amuses himself with finishing oatmeal, then decides to clean up both oatmeal bowls (and Metis', if she expects Isabella to) simply because he's not sure if it's worth throwing several hours away to get something maybe right when he could wait a little while and get it right for sure. Besides, she made the oatmeal, it feels fair to him to clean it up.
Isabella notes him cleaning up, and says "thanks", but then her attention is back on her spell.
"You're welcome," he replies, "Let me know when you're ready to begin your spell? I'll work on mine some more."
Write write cross out page turn write flip back a few pages "hmmm" write write draw a circle and lots of arrows "hmm" flip forward a few pages write write.
Adarin goes to the attic and does much the same! His daemon follows and offers assistance, something he's realized is quite helpful in spell creation. Time would pass until Isabella lets him know she's ready.
Path flutters up to the attic. "My Isabella is ready to put down runes now if you want to watch," he announces.
He finishes the part he was writing, then gets up and heads down to watch, daemon trailing behind.
"Here goes," she says, and she slits a little hole in the sugar and starts drawing the runes, occasionally pinching the hole shut to consult her notes.
Finding an out of the way part of the room, her guest sits and watches. This is all quite interesting, and he watches with fascinated attention. He might ask to look at her notes, later, but that'll be for when she's done with the spell. It's hard-coded into his head to never, ever distract a spell-caster that he doesn't want to screw over.
She steps over her runes carefully and kneels in the middle of the circle. (Path remains outside, facing her.)
She inhales, and closes her eyes, and recites an apparently memorized poem:
"Sugar circle, seek and bring
The compass that can, silent, sing.
Find it, bring it, take it here,
From its place to somewhere near,
And in my hands place honesty
And give Alethia to me."
There is a sudden wind and the sugar goes everywhere. The lights flicker. And Isabella is holding a slightly dented alethiometer, which she instantly hugs.
Adarin grins and appreciatively claps, cheering a little. "First try, congratulations!"
Isabella takes a little bow from her kneeling position. Then she inspects her alethiometer, which appears to be in working order, dents or not. "Okay. What do you need to do with this thing?"
"I need to study it a bit, magically. Have to understand how it all... Fits to make the spell work. May I?" he motions to the alethiometer. It's easier to do this if it's being held, but not strictly required if she refuses.
"Sure. Just please be careful with it." She hands it over and grabs her cloud-pine, which she apparently has no qualms about using as a broom to get the worst of the sugar swept up.
Staring at it, he says his own incantation - a memory aid, according to his explanation. Nothing particularly impressive would happen, but Adarin does get a sort of far-off look in his eyes as he stares at it. He's not seeing the Alethiometer. After about a minute of very intense staring with little to no blinking, he's found what he needs to know and is released from the spell. He rubs his dry eyes, a bit.
"Alright, it's really complicated so I'll probably need to look over it again, but I have the basic idea of it now. Would you like it back?"
"Unless it'll help you to hold onto it. I can't make a lot of headway at doing anything with it until you finish your spell."
"Fair enough. Would you like the one that offers translations for what it says, or the one that does the opposite for you first?"
He nods, "Then I'll start with that one." He offers the alethiometer back to Isabella. "I'll ask when I need to see it again - I don't want to give you the impression that I'd run off with it, or something."
She tucks it into a pocketlike location in her silks. "Thanks. I wouldn't appreciate it if you did that."