"Oh, the sort of catastrophe you'd expect when magic entities that can reverse time or create earthquakes or make things disappear and who have values orthogonal to humanity's are let loose."

"So, miscellaneous terror with a side of world destruction then?" He tilts his head. "Sounds horrible."

"Pretty much! But they conveniently don't activate all at the same time so we can run around capturing them."

"Uh-huh," he says. "And I suppose the winged guardian is… really unhelpful? You ask him questions, he throws a bunch of words at you, you tangle through them all, find out he's actually said nothing of interest, and then he gets offended at the suggestion?" He thinks for a second. "Maybe he also has some fixation on, I don't know, brightly-coloured things? Since he's a winged stuffed bear and all. Possibly gets comically angry?"

Theo laughs at that. Again. "Not far off," he says.

"He has a fixation on sweets, actually," Sadde corrects. "And he tries to be helpful but isn't very successful."

"Oh, of course. How silly of me to suggest brightly coloured things." He laughs. "It sounds like you have this all worked out. Planning on writing a book?"

"Oh, no, it's all very secret, see, if people found out they might want to take this power and use it for the wrong reasons."

"So, anybody can use the cards? Does the guardian bear thing have any magic of its own?"

William is plenty happy to talk to Sadde to help him flesh out his world.

"Only people with magic can use the cards, and the guardian bear is actually shaped like a winner lion tiger thing in his true form but you need to have captured the fire and the earth cards for that. He's apparently very powerful in his true form, too."

"Huh. So, how's it picked whether someone has magic or not? If it's some sort of chosen one thing, then presumably it's fine to publicise information about the cards, because people aren't going to be able to use them anyway?"

Theo looks at Sadde as if he's considering something.

"I dunno. I think Kero—that's the magic bear guardian—said there were sorcerer families? But Mum doesn't have any magic and I do, and so does Theo. Maybe you do, too."

"Sorcerer families?"

Theo continues to look at Sadde as if he's considering something.

And then he decides to say something.

"You know, he's actually being serious about this."

Sadde raises an eyebrow at Theo then continues explaining: "Yeah, clans that do magic. The guy who made these cards was the scion to two of them, and he combined their magic into the cards."

Theo rolls his eyes at Sadde. "Yeah, I think we can tell him. Since we kinda already have."

William laughs a bit. "You two seem really invested in this idea."

It's handy that Theo always has the Key on him, isn't it?

He pulls it out, recites the stupid phrase, and oh look, it's a pink staff.

His dad's smile is now… a bit frozen in place.

Sadde laughs. "Oi Kero! Come downstairs a bit!" he calls.

"What? What is it? Is it a Clow Card?" he asks as he flies downstairs like an arrow.

...then stops and looks at William.

William laughs a bit. "I… don't remember falling asleep?"

"That'll be 'cause you're not," says Theo, laughing a bit in response.

William laughs again, a bit incredulously.