Then he will confirm again that he can try to fix Lin's eyes, and... Very very carefully tell her body what to do, to get closer to correct.

It's itchy, and takes twenty long minutes.

When he's done, she has some sort of migraine, and everything is a bit too bright and too blurry, but she can see again. Nico is watching with bated breath, worrying if he messed it up.

"It worked! Thank you, Nico.

Let's just talk for now - I'm still feeling bad. So, you want to defend yourself against people bigger than you, and stronger, and with surprise.

You have two inherent advantages: it's harder for them to reach you if you're low, and they fall harder than you when you knock their knees out. In addition, I can train you to be faster and more prepared. For example, I carry sharp bits I can reach with my hands and throw behind me, and slime that I can put on my skin to slip away. As long as it's only for escaping, it's not disiniuria to use magic to get it. You could, if you want, practice making your skin slippery and dissolving your clothes?

I recommend fighting with a blade. A dagger in each hand, or a sword if you prefer. Will that interfere with your magic? But first, you need to learn to move, on your feet and on the ground; taking a fall and getting up faster than your enemy.

Would you be willing to practice with someone larger? Merta perhaps?

What I have learned is that I need to keep clean water on me, to wash my eyes, and that I should run immediately when startled. The same applies to you. More broadly, you need a fast response: something to throw, or magic to escape.

One more point: if you improve your body, attacking with those improvements could be disiniuria. It is for lieflings. You might be able to argue that a kaleid's body is a personal choice, not a species trait. Meikalani would accept that, I think, but some Magistrates might be looking for an excuse to get you in trouble."

"I will practice with someone bigger than me. It'll be a good lesson. know you can't learn to fight without getting hurt." He is holding very still as he says this, and it's somehow - quieter - than most things he says. "I just want someone who won't... Be mean, I guess... Who isn't having fun hurting me and that's the only reason they're teaching me... I know how to use my knife for tool things, not for fighting, but you can use swords and also magic. The magic I already know for improving my body is definitely disinuria, it makes you really strong for one second. I wasn't thinking and did fire instead, last time..."

"A teacher should draw satisfaction from your growth, but for everyone else winning is more fun than teaching... I still recommend Merta.

I don't mean just strength for a second, but also permanent changes, like four-color eyes. My opinion is that giving yourself claws is like carrying a knife, but if most kaleids have claws, it starts to look like a thing that kaleids have that frogolds don't. And I know that you can give a frogold claws just as easily, but unless that happens often - hm, there's a thought: if kaleids modify enough people, that could cast doubt on the whole concept of disiniuria."

"Hmm! People in Gale Rocks change their bodies all the time! You're supposed to be an adult before doing that. I don't remember if it's not safe or another thing kids aren't supposed to do just because. I was going to get hooves, for running, maybe. My dad was all... Huge and hairy, and my mom was a little bit drake-y. That's why I wasn't surprised about Calsa until I learned about her magic. What about tools? If I make a weapon that anyone can use and then use it, does it matter that only a kaleid could have made it?"

"Huh, cool.

Weapons are probably okay if they're widely used, and as long as you've had that weapon a little while and didn't just make it for the purpose of attacking a specific person? Unless a Magistrate is out to get you.

Everyone has stone knives, including werewolves, but a liefling poisoning someone with their own leaf is disiniuria even if they didn't target the poison to the victim when they made it. Because people are afraid of being poisoned by lieflings. People aren't afraid of being poisoned by equartiers."

"Yeah. I don't want to hurt people really. I just want to... Not be someone you can hurt. And the way to do that is to be scary.

You said something about why adults don't tell kids important things last time. Now I know you're an adult, but can you tell me why at least?"

"Oh right. There's lots of reasons, really, some nicer than others, but the main one is that kids are unpredictable. If you say you don't like your neighbor's singing, a kid might try to murder them - not likely, but it's possible, because kids are still learning what's expected of an adult. They don't know the rules, they don't know how to tell when someone is joking or serious or idly complaining, they don't know when to keep secrets. And even if they're trying to do everything properly, they don't have the skills to lie or figure out someone's loyalty or make a distraction that actually distracts instead of drawing more attention.

I think you're mostly reliable. It's easier when you know the kid, but not for so long that you remember when they were younger and don't notice how they've changed."

"I think I am careful, and if you're careful you're less unpredictable. But if I'm really scared, I would be unpredictable again. I'm glad you're okay."

Nico will let Lin rest after not very much longer, and get back into the swing of things.

Tanno's weekly report for the magistrate (delivered directly to Merta) contains the following items:

• The new berry variant will be marginally useful but is not revolutionary. He has been focusing on teaching Nico. No other new plant varieties this week.
• Nico expressly gave Tanno permission to report on what magic he learns, 'so she'll know I'm useful'.
• He has started using magic directly on plants. He can change live plants, but naive attempts to breed new strains do not also alter the seeds, so this is of limited use so far.
• He has recovered some of his missing 'blue' magic, and demonstrated several uses: Instant cleaning (flinging dirt and grime away), separation of mixed dust and sand into its constituent components, teleporting small objects short distances, rapid dehydration of a plant sample.
• Other novel displayed non-blue magic: Manipulating stone like a werewolf does (black), chilling things at a touch (red), making his mice more awake and energetic (green) (he is concerned about side effects and is keeping this to mice), the ability to detect the presence and location and rough kind of ongoing magic including my breath (for short periods; white).
• He is learning about heat transfer and melting/boiling points.
• He is learning math; Multiplication, division, decimals, graphing.
• He also continues to learn about plant and animal biology.
• With Larian he set up and performed an experiment to demonstrate the principles behind the aquifer pumps.
• He is showing interest in some sort of experiment with high temperature catfire and light (not Tanno's specialty), involving Lin and Calsa, but is willing to be very careful since it might be dangerous.
• He's practicing hand to hand fighting as vigorously as he was practicing dancing earlier.
• He's expressed an interest in the steel mill. Perhaps someone there can help with the above experiment since Calsa doesn't seem to be a specialist.
• He has been showing signs of trauma, much more concerned with how things will go wrong, after the incident. Quieter as well, and occasionally suffers sudden mood drops.

Detecting magic would make him a great bodyguard, but would not be a good use of him for Kef or the world - or himself actually, he would hate it.

Would he be interested in engaging a liefling to improve his mood? At Kef's expense.

When dehydrating the plant, what happened to the water - did he collect it? Could he pull water from the air?

Sounds like a perfect job for Fuzzer.

"So I'll lift my cup for you, Nico: yeah, I can give you a tour of the mill and talk about catfire, let you examine my eyes or whatever, but what I really want is to work for you. Whether you stay in Kef or not. You're new and interesting and constantly pulling out more new and interesting things, and you're going to have so many projects someday that you'll need helpers. Say you strengthen parts of a turbine so it can run faster or hotter; I can design and oversee the construction of ten turbines for you, measure how well they work, and design the eleventh to be the best yet. For now, I'll help how I can whenever I'm not working or sleeping and don't need money, but I figure you would want to know my posture here. Meika told me to come over, but I'm not doing this for her."

(He separated the water, dampening the table next to the leaves. He can also pull water out of the air but complained about it being inefficient. Nico says he's willing to try using alertness magic on someone; This is a thing he knows from his mysterious home to be mostly safe, with the main failure mode being overusing it and stressing the body, or becoming reliant on it.)

"...I am very weird, yeah. I like that reason. It makes sense. Also I can pay you some, Meikalani gave me a bunch for getting attacked. If you want to help figure out stuff about heat glow, I would like that. I dunno about what's after that but hot steel is really bright, so what if we could make things that bright for the farms? I definitely want a tour of the mill too if you don't mind."

"What have you done so far?"

"I showed him how to soften glass, and he wanted to know why the flame is more orange then, so I told him that it's because the air is hotter so the flame is hotter - right? - but then he asked why the flame has to be hotter, since even a regular flame glows way more than hot glass, and I don't know that. Am I telling it right, kiddo?"

"Yeah, and also maybe some experiments about what light really is? It's not like temperature and it's not like weight either but it has to be something. I think that since catfire can get hotter sometimes, there might be a way for one catfolk to make way more heat and light. Since hot things glow, and glow much brighter in the kinds of light we can see when they're very hot, like melted iron. What if you could put something as hot as melted iron on all the fire poles? And then use white panels above them, or mirrors, to make more light for crops and stuff."

"Yes, a glass flame is hotter because the air it starts with is hotter. The light that a flame emits does not have the same relationship to the temperature of the flame as between the light and temperature of hot steel or glass. Assuming that we can accurately measure the temperature of each by placing a rock against each for a while, letting it cool in the same air, and touching it. The rock glows when fully warmed by the steel, with the same color."

"It's not safe to touch glowing hot steel. But if you get close to it, you can feel that it's a lot hotter than a glass flame."

"Farms already have white or shiny hoods on the poles... but if you had a concentrated light source like a chunk of steel, you might be able to focus the light more precisely! I don't think that would be useful for farming, but maybe there's another application!"

"What light really is?" His pupils widen to almost circular. "What have you tried?"

"You don't think catfire could be even brighter? We haven't tried much yet. I tried shining different colors of light on things with my magic to see if one color would make a black rock warmer than another, but if it did, we couldn't tell the difference. I want to try it with color glass. I tried making the tiniest piece of light I could right next to my eyes in a really dark place, and when I did that I couldn't see anything. I don't know if I actually made any light or not when I did that. M- Lin had an idea about two lights that are almost the same color. That maybe something funny would happen, like if you make sounds that are close in pitch. I think light has a thing that's like temperature or pitch but I'm not sure how to tell. Ooh, I wonder if-"

He hesitates a moment before continuing.

"I wonder if I can tell my lights to be different light-pitch based on how far apart they are. Maybe we could get two lights that are almost the same color that way? Or maybe because it's my magic, not regular light, that wouldn't tell us anything. Like... It would act that way because I was imagining it that way, not because light-pitch is real."

"A glass flame is brighter than normal, and a steel flame is brighter than that. To make a steel flame you need a bunch of cats going full blast and almost all of that is wasted: mild heat that's nice for mill's neighbors and not much else. If you can figure out how to efficiently make a steel flame that would be fantastic.

How did you make the same amounts of light of different colors? Does your magic have an intuitive sense of 'amount of light'? Not that I would trust that it's correct, but it might mean something."

"None of your other magic is imaginary, is it? And your light makes plants grow! Which would be green if you were faking it somehow, but you're only using white? Is that convincing?"

"If nothing else, you could spend an entire point on making light of each color... or do you get more efficient with practice?"

"Let's look at the mill now!"