"Depends on the job, for you I'm totally willing to give you a few freebies in the name of not dying. If you make a habit of coming to me, I'll starting having you pay for materials I use and time. I charge less for novelty and more for tedium, anywhere from thirty bucks an hour to three hundred or more."

"I'm not going to charge you for not killing you, that seems like it would set up really bad incentives for me, I will not kill you because you seem plausibly harmless and I am separately in the market for magic consultation. Although you wouldn't believe how poorly this gig pays."

Yvette lets out a breath of relief. "Thanks."

She tentatively lets her hands drop. "Humans don't send donations into a GoFundMe for their underaged protector? No wonder there's an apocalypse every year."

"Well, I'm not common knowledge."

Shrug. "Yeah. But you see my point. It's inefficient and it's stupid."

"I noticed."

"I bet. To be fair, the other side's not any better. Do you know how many idiots want to actually destroy the world?"

"I haven't been doing this that long, what's the bad news."

"Uh. My yearly apocalypse joke was semi-serious. There are lots of idiots that want to destroy the world, and no, I do not know why."

"Great."

"Yep. Luck with that. Want a protection charm?"

"I would love one. Can I verify it without being able to do magic? Maybe the Magic Box clerk would hold it in escrow or something, check it over. Not that you don't seem nice in an amoral way."

"Yeah, sure, we can use the Magic Box clerk as a proxy, I think. And yep, no offense taken, I'm a scary vampire, bleh."

Snort.

Smirk. "Permission to pick up my magical groceries? And what kind of protection charm do you want, some of them do different things. If you want a guarantee that it'll work I'm going to want to know what's up with why you can't magic, it might factor in."

"I'm really curious about that anyway, magic would be much more my speed than sharp objects. What are my options?"

"So you're probably going to want something permanent, which means you'll need to pick a branch that plays well with stuff that'll stack on top of it in emergencies. Do you want the magic to prevent bad things from happening entirely, or mitigate the bad things that do happen to you? There are some things that will clarify Slayer senses, some things that will make projectiles tend to miss, some things that will do healing, some things that allay attention so you can sneak more effectively... basically, when you think of how you want to be kept safe, what comes to mind? Ideally the thing I make will work with how you work."

"...I might not have Slayer senses."

Blink.

"Uh? Have you had prophetic nightmares? I hear there's prophetic nightmares."

"No. I did not have any prophetic nightmares and a Power that Is showed up in my bedroom to tell me I was supposed to."

"... What weirdness is going on with you I am so curious now."

"Me too!"

"Maybe some kind of family line thing? Do you know if any family members have done anything related to magic...?"

"Pretty sure they have not."

"Have you upset any witches, stumbled upon any weird ritual sites at times of power, equinoxes or full moons or solar eclipses or the like...?"