"Extremely short distances, but I'd fall out of the sky in about ten minutes if I tried flying now," he says.

"I can prrrrobably take a passenger. But here's the point where I start wondering whether there's anything in it for me if I usher you to civilization and show you where to buy chamomile."

Adarin seems amused by this! "Well, I'd be happy to either pay you for your services, or help you in some way through my magic. I'm not sure what kinds of things you'd need, though."

"And witches avoid using money per se and I don't know what your magic can do that mine can't, apart from moving you from plane to plane."

"Ah. Well. I can do some simple spells for vanity right now, if you want it," says Adarin. Something in the way he's saying it seems he probably wouldn't respect her very much if she took him up on that offer. "On the more practical sense, I can make illusions, or portals from one place to another that will stick around once I've left. If those don't appeal, if there's a problem you're consistently having I might be able to help with it if you explain it."

"The portals are tempting. But what I most want is a solution to mortality. Failing that directly, I want an alethiometer, which I expect to be able to get myself eventually, and the ability to read it, which is notoriously difficult even when studied for a lifework."

"There are no solutions to mortality that I know of," he says carefully, regarding Isabella in a new light. "But I can do a scry or two with little trouble, if you'd like me to help find an... 'Alethiometer.' Reading it I might be able to help with, but I'm not sure. How do they work?"

"An alethiometer is a truth-telling device," says Isabella. "There are a number of symbols around the edge, each of which has a staggering number of meanings. You can ask it a question by turning a dial to the symbols relevant to the inquiry, and meditating on which of the meanings you want and what the grammar of the whole mess is, and get replies in a similar manner."

"That sounds like an utter nightmare," he says sympathetically. "I could make a spell that would bring up all possible translations for each symbol every time it's brought up, but I doubt that would help with the problem. I'll help how I can, however."

"It would be an incremental help, certainly - there are dictionaries, but they go only a few hundred meanings deep per symbol, and increasingly speculatively."

He nods, thinking about the problem. "I'd have to spell an object to help, since I doubt you want to wait around for me to show up to cast it for you? Paper or stone always works reasonably well in these sorts of situations, but you might want something else. The object would change and show all known meanings for a symbol in writing as you wanted."

"Either paper or stone would work well for me - can it do them in order? The alethiometer stops a specific number of times on the relevant symbols. If you can get them to work in order..."

"I can do the order, yes. Something to... Hmm. Record every symbol that comes up in the order it shows, then let you search through each symbol's meaning either in order or in whatever order you choose if you're going back to look over it? Does that sound doable?" he asks, curiously. He's smiling a little; he likes this problem. Not only is it interesting, but he likes the reason it's even being solved.

"So if it gave me, say, the alpha and omega and the beehive and the cherub, I'd have a stone that would note that it had given me those symbols, and I'd just have to keep count for each and I could look it up - and your spell would do it correctly and not like Professor So-and-so's guesswork about meaning four hundred and eighty or whatever?"

"If you need it to keep count I can do that, too. But yes, it would do it correctly, if the sources it's drawing from are correct. It sounds like it will only be able to show possibly correct meanings, it doesn't have the intellect to actually translate them perfectly. That would be up to you, I'm afraid."

"It'd be most convenient if it kept count. And gave me a way to look up meanings to compose questions with. I can muddle through the grammar - ask the same question a few different ways, maybe."

Adarin laughs a little. "This is going to be very complicated, isn't it? I'll try to spell a separate object for composing questions. May I ask if I can try to ask the truth teller questions of my own, as well?"

"As long as it's about relatively innocuous things like chamomile and you aren't, I don't know, looking for nuclear weapons."

"Then yes. I can't use it literally twenty-four hours a day, even once I get ahold of one. I'm on my way home to my teacher's house and she'll probably let me stash you in the attic long enough for me to invent a spell to find me a missing alethiometer. How long will the spell take once you've got one?"

"Less than an hour for one spell, though I'll need breaks between spelling each of the objects. These are shaping up to be large and complicated," he explains.

"How large? Maybe I want paper instead of rocks after all."

"The spells, not the objects. Paper would be fine, I'd just have to know what I'm spelling before I begin. I'd recommend keeping the paper safe or putting it under protections since it's flimsier than rocks or something, but other than that it's fine," he explains.

"If the rocks can be small I'll take rocks. As long as I can get them and the alethiometer itself, plus the things I usually carry, into my bag."

"They can be small. I can do some basic reshaping on rocks if you'd like, to get them to be a smoother surface or a certain shape or something."