"I wouldn't take that trade even if it was guaranteed not to kill me, I really like all the things that I am."

Spell spell spell.

"- hey, do you have a shower? I would like a shower."

"Oh, yeah, there's a bathroom between each set of two bedrooms on either side, go nuts."

"Thank you!"

Off he goes to take a shower! Alone! Without amphisbaena hissing in the ceiling! He casts wards anyway but nothing even pokes them.

The two sorceresses end up practicing magic by grabbing some water from the other bathroom and...juggling? it between them. Is it juggling when it's all one stream instead of several discrete objects?

"- what spell is that?"

"--Oh, it's not really a spell, elementalism doesn't so much come in discrete spells."

"...Huh."

"That's most of why it's more a sorceress thing than an academic thing."

When Bella has re-rendered the spell documentation into a format she likes better she asks if she can take the other shower.

"Go for it." 

Ahhhhh a decent shower. Bliss.

Not long after Bella gets out of the shower, Johann reports, "I got a response from my Divination professor; she wants to meet at least one of you before trying any divinations about where you come from." 

"I'll meet her."

He starts rolling his chair out of the room. "I should probably warn you before you meet her that she's a gorgon." 

"Do I need a mirror?"

"No, she wears a veil. But she reacts adversely to startlement. Not adversely like dangerously, but since we want a favor from her..."

"Okay. I will try not to startle her, is that more complicated than normal somehow?"

"--No, I mean, to other people being startled by her snakes."

"Oh. I'm not especially scared of snakes, especially if they are firmly attached to someone else's head and not traveling in my direction."

"Gorgons are rare and most of them are less neighborly than she is so people do startle sometimes. Gorgons gain mana from people who they have petrified; she can release petrifaction at will, so she has a perfectly good arrangement with the school where she petrifies particularly egregious troublemakers and parks them in front of educational videos explaining what they did wrong, then lets them go." 

"They can see and hear while they're petrified?"

"They can. And most gorgons can't release petrification at will. And stone to flesh is a rank five hex."

"...counterspells are firmly in affinity for me, if that's, uh, likely to matter."