Velya just got back to the city last night and he's not really looking forward to taking a walk around, Zorvey is one of his least favorite places.

There is a child in a basket by the front door and that's as good an excuse not to go for a walk as any, really. He picks up the basket in his gloved hands and takes it inside. If the child sleeps through that (or the adult bodysnatcher pretends to sleep through it, either way) he'll probably wake them anyway by shouting for Tema and Chanai.

The child doesn't wake up to being lifted but does to the shouting. She looks confused.

Tema isn't far at all, and shows up almost immediately.

"We can just leave the obvious trap on the street for someone else, you know. Everything in that basket is almost definitely cursed even besides the obvious."

"Well that's rude."

"You know, obvious trap or not, you're very cute, itty bitty little basket person." They're trying to watch for signs that the basket entity is annoyed or nonplussed at being called cute in the way that an adult might be. It's reasonably likely that a human baby left on a random doorstep is not a human baby, and pretty concerning if it's not a random doorstep either.

"You could have just left me on the street. I can go back out right now, if you don't want me in the house, notwithstanding that apparently you brought me here?" She starts squirming out of her blanket.

"I did that because one of the reasons someone might have left you here is if you're a child who's just a slow study at magic and needs more competent teaching to avoid being killed. Even if it's really unlikely it seemed important to check."

"- I think I have amnesia but I remember how to make potions."

He looks at Tema.

"Potions, huh? What do they do?"

"Lots of stuff. It depends what ingredients I have. I can make a good healing po- hm, I'm not sure it would work on you? I could make a good healing potion that would work on me. I would probably need different stuff for you."

"I'm glad you can do that but I think you'll be safer if your magic does something else - can you maybe make things fly or change color or can you put someone to sleep or blind them?"

"I could do colors or sleeping or blinding probably. With the right ingredients."

"Good, we'll help you find the ingredients you need. I'm sorry to scare you but you're about the right age to be checked for magic and if people thought you didn't have any you'd be in danger."

"I had begun to gather that."

"Yeah. The problem is that you look human, and there are bad people who look human and can't do magic - but you don't have to worry about it beyond making it clear you're not one of them. What ingredients do you need?"

"Can I just look at what there is to use and see what I could make of it?"

She turns to Velya. "Can you go - no, I guess you wouldn't know where I've moved things - can you watch her while I get some herbs?"

Velya nods and Tema goes to do that.

"Watch me do what?"

"Well, it's possible you're an adult who's lying to us to try to hurt Tema, and it's also possible you're a toddler in a room that isn't set up to be safe for a toddler and might hurt yourself by accident. I would rather neither of those things happen."

"I don't see how I'd hurt myself just by sitting here waiting for ingredients."

"A human the age that your body would be if it were a human body might decide to wait for ingredients and then do something else because their decisions and their actions hadn't grown all the way together yet."

"Well, if you're very worried about that you could give me a book to read."

"Well, and also I don't want to hand you fragile valuables. D'you know if it's normal for your species to know how to read at your age?"

"No, I don't even remember what species I am."