"Or you can but it'd be dangerous - I had a guy in one of my math classes whose affinity was those absolutely gnarly alchemy things where you have stuff spread out all over the counter or on the floor even, and he sold help with them because he can do it and it's not more dangerous than normal and anybody else is probably going to kick something over."

That doesn't make sense! 

:Huh. I - hmm, I could use some more examples of - what sorts of affinities people tend to have? If it's not different Gifts, then I'm - confused about what it is: 

Raleigh feels like they've really fully explained it at this point! "Uh, in my enclave, there were people with affinities for fortifications, and for artifacts personalized to specific people - Rebecca's got one of them, actually - uh, and mine is for boosting other people's spells." 

"It's the thing you're best at with magic? Like, you seem to be telepathic, that's not normal, if a wizard was telepathic I'd assume that was their affinity. There's... let's see... my boyfriend does layered spells, the kind you reinforce a bajillion times before they're much good. Julia does illusions, Chloe's is paint, Julia has a buddy whose affinity is cosmetics, his alliance had a sleep affinity and a water affinity in it which I remember 'cause I was curious how you get out the gates with that no matter how stunning your makeup looks... Vanya's is music, a little more generic than mine, like he could sing but he also did like, instruments in shop... I hope he made it out..." They were supposed to know, by now, who from the year ahead of them got home.

:I - what - cosmetics? As in, when women paint their faces to look more beautiful?: 

This makes NO SENSE. On reflection, the things she's hearing haven't been making sense for a while. 

"Well, he branched out into weird stuff, since looking beautiful isn't very important in the Scholomance, but yeah, that, he was an alchemist."

Nod. 

:Right. I - think I need some more background on your school of magic. It sounds like children from a pretty big area go to study there? How old is it - do you know if there was a specific founder -?: 

"It's like not super old? I think like a hundred or two hundred years. Founder was some guy who I never actually learned his name."

:Interesting: That's - pretty recent, for a mage-school. And might explain why she's never heard of it – though not why she's never heard of any of the places being mentioned. :Are there competing schools in the same region?: 

"N...o?" Raleigh says, uncertainly. "The Scholomance was insanely expensive to build. Shanghai's been sort of threatening to go build their own if the Anglosphere doesn't open up more slots for them, but who knows if they ever actually will." 

"Yeah, I think anybody who doesn't go to the Scholomance is homeschooled."

What. Somehow each additional answer is making LESS sense of things rather than more.

:Homeschooled? Does that mean apprenticed to an adult mage, or something different?: 

"Well, like, their parents, presumably?"

The priestess makes a very confused face. :But - presumably sometimes their parents aren't themselves Gifted, or have different Gifts?: 

"Yeah? Usually people like me with mundie parents just, uh, get eaten, since my parents aren't wizards. And somebody with a really specific affinity whose parents' affinities are totally different is going to have a hard time. Everybody with options sends their kid to the Scholomance! It's not surprising that the other possibilities aren't good, that's why nobody takes them if they have a slot."