"I, uh, maybe?  You don't know why these ratios - sines and cosines turn into a circle; they Just Do?  If I read that in a story, it'd be some huge clue to the laws of magic or something a hundred pages later!"

For that matter, there's a nagging thought in the back of Lila's mind that maybe there really are laws of magic in this universe.  After all, she's got a lot more reason to think there's magic than she had yesterday.

Probably sines and cosines and unit circles aren't a clue to that.  They're already a clue to physics and engineering, or so Ms. Dermot says.  But she should keep her eyes open.

"I don't recall that having ever been explained, so much as only defined, off the top of my head.  Sine's the length of the right-angle side Opposite over the length of the Hypotenuse, cosine's Adjacent over Hypotenuse, tangent's Opposite/Adjacent.

"...Now I'm actually thinking about whether lines-that-are-tangent-to-things are related!  Bwah!  I mean I guess you can y equals mx plus b it, sort of..."

Lila tries to pay attention, but her eyes glaze over pretty quickly, and she turns to wondering what it would've been like with a sister who actually liked math like this.  Had her other self gotten to like it more, too?

By the time they get to school, the nagging feeling about magic has come back and grown.  As they inch forward in the dropoff line, she leans forward and whispers, "Mom - any idea how this happened?"

"If it's not magic I don't really know what it could be.  I'll see if I can find out anything.  ...I love you; stay safe."

And then it's dropoff time.

"Love you too!"

Lila grabs her bag and jumps out of the car, suddenly excited.  Even Mom agrees there's magic.  And she's in the middle of it, playing a part.

Her friend Gene is in the hall as they walk into the building, lightly frowning in boredom as usual.

"Oh, hey, Lila," he says, raising his hand lightly.

And then he continues in the next breath, "Hey, Violet."

So, her friends also remember Violet.  Probably Lila's the only one who doesn't.

Violet waves quietly at Gene.  This is not abnormal Violet-behavior.

Gene waves back at Violet and turns to Lila.  "Up for kicking a ball around after school?  Or are you just going to be studying with your sister?"

That's quite normal for Gene... until the last line.

"Ask me over lunch?" she says.  "I might be busy."  Either learning more about her sister or... well, figuring out magic to learn more about her sister.

"We're having a quiz today.  In math.  Don't know if Lila has other tests coming up though."

'So she should, but might not, be free from studying,' goes unsaid, as it's obvious.

"Oh yeah, that.  Well, let me know if you get up to anything else fun."

Lila almost wants to tell him the whole thing; he'd definitely think that was interesting.  But it'd be breaking character, and it's almost class time anyway.

"Maybe some family history.  Talk later?"

"Yeah, maybe you'd find family history fun," he says with a friendly grin.  "Later."

He heads off down the hall.

It is indeed almost class time.  "See you in math."

Lila sets off down the hall for her first-period class - chemistry - before realizing it might not be the same in this universe.  So she awkwardly opens her planner in the middle of the school hall... only to find out that it's the same chemistry class after all.

Once there, with the teacher lecturing on electron shells, her mind - as usual - wanders.

Magic is real.  It's somewhere close by.  She can almost feel all the possibilities.

How can she find out about it?

Well, if there's a secret magical community hiding themselves... 

... then if they're really good at hiding, she won't be able to find them.  But that's no fun.

But if they aren't that good at hiding -

Well, she's already escaped one of their memory-changing spells!  (If that's even the sort of spell they used.  And if they even tried to change her memory too.)  So maybe she can pierce through their Masquerade!

And where to start...

Well, she could just wait for lunch, jump up on the table, and start screaming about magic to everyone - including any secret magic people - in the lunchroom.  But they probably wouldn't like a public challenge like that.  And Mom did say to be careful.

So who should she mention it to?

(The bell rings, and Lila realizes she hasn't been paying attention to the last half of the lecture.  She quickly copies down the homework and scrambles out to English.)

As the teacher starts talking about the newest chapters in the book they've been reading, Lila looks around the classroom.  Her eyes pass over Aeslin, a quiet girl who - as usual - is sitting on the other side of the room wearing a nondescript loose black dress with a star pendant.

Then Lila does a double-take.

Aeslin's black dress looks for all the world like a traditional witch's robe.  And... is that a witch's hat on top of her backpack, straight out of the picture-books?

She can hardly not talk to Aeslin now.

Lila runs up to her as soon as class's over.  "Hey, Aeslin!"

Aeslin looks at her blankly.

Lila glances around; thankfully no one seems to be listening closely.  "What'd you say if I told you I just saw some magic?"

Aeslin looks irritated.  "I'd tell you I like this hat as a hat; no need for assumptions."

Lila feels a bit guilty, but Aeslin didn't say to stop, and she wants to try one more time.  "I'm really curious - say, about what might make someone immune to magic - and I thought you might be a good person to ask?"

Aeslin narrows her eyes.  "Immune..." she whispers thoughtfully.

Then she shakes her head a moment.  "Got to get to my next class.  See you over lunch?"

(Somewhere else, at exactly this moment, Ophelia Mondegreen permits herself a small moment of fond motherly exasperation in between solving corporate problems and doing her own research.  She doesn't yet know why she's doing that, but she will have opinions, later, on whether this is even remotely like 'being safe'.)