Her Alice, naturally, does the opposite of complain about this.

You wanted to talk?

I want to know what's going on.

Don't we all.

I was told that the only way to find out what's going on was to talk to you.

Probably true. Any other ambitions I can help you with while we're at it?

I am half concerned that if I announced a desire for a pony, one might actually appear, and I do not actually want a pony.

So. What's going on?

I'm hardly going to waste resources giving an obviously facetious pony to someone I barely know.

You're going to have to ask much more specific questions if you want useful answers.

How does the vaguely sinister organization Bridget speaks so highly of work? How big is it? What can it do? What does it want, what do you want, to what extent do those differ?

Vaguely sinister organization? Really?

I know a lot of people. Some of them have magic. Some of them have other useful talents or circumstances. Sometimes I ask them to help each other, or me. I generally try to see to it that everyone gets along and nobody has too much trouble with anything. I don't think any of that qualifies as sinister, vaguely or otherwise.

I've already had the "sinister" argument with Bridget, I guess.

Why do you run this thing?

How many is a lot?

What do you want?

You haven't had it with me.

I don't currently trust you enough to tell you any numbers, and I don't know you well enough to answer the other two.

So talking to you is not actually a very effective way of finding out what's going on, then, is it.

On the contrary, I think you'll find it's the best way there is.

Unless you want me to tell you everything you want to know in exchange for absolutely no personal or logistical investment whatsoever, in which case I am not at all sorry to disappoint you.

I did ask you what you wanted.

From you?

If you have the time, I'd like you to come to New York and have a chat with me about your goals in life.

My next school break is Christmas and I've promised it elsewhere, even if my bank account could accommodate plane tickets across the country. What's the added benefit of putting me in New York?

I can cover plane fare if that's a problem.

I'm much better at figuring people out in person than by email. You want to know a lot of things I don't usually tell people. I want to know that you're not going to use that information in any way I wouldn't like.

I can take a long weekend if you're buying. I'm ahead by enough in my Monday classes.

Sounds good to me. Let me know your preferred travel times and I'll arrange tickets.

I'm flexible. Eastward Friday night, westward Sunday night or Monday morning?

Sure.

Thanks.

No problem.

She reaches Lazarus's busy message, which says, [I'm sleeping?] in a tone of voice that indicates he is perhaps not totally sure of that.

[Why the plane?]

[Because Libby doesn't know I don't need planes to get around, and she's buying.] She leaves the message with Lazarus's brain answering machine.

Indeed Bella is presently declining to supervise - it's not unpleasant as a spectator sport, she's just used up her interest for the time being. [You probably shouldn't come along. Native powers trump wishes, and some people's native powers are seeing stuff.]

[Okay,] he says cheerfully. [Have fun.]

Where will I meet you when I appear at LaGuardia?

I think it would be simplest if I met you at the airport. I'll find you, don't worry.

How am I to recognize you?

Her reply contains no text, just a picture.

See you there.

Yep.

[Good morning,] he says sleepily. [Who invented mornings?]

[Astronomy?] suggests Bella. [I don't need to sleep anymore. Does that sound appealing?]

[..Yes, actually. Did I see that one already? I forget.]

[Nah, it's new. I wanted to pull an all-nighter and I'd been thinking about it for a while. I can sleep normally at will and wake up under circumstances when I would normally have woken up, or at a predetermined time. Otherwise I always feel like it's about ten in the morning after a good night's rest and a cup of coffee.]

[That's very well designed,] he compliments, yawning. [I want one.]

Bella adds a hex to his little cloth bag. [Consult your stash of coins.]

[Do tell.]

[I'm not sure of this yet,] he says cautiously. [But it seems like when I make a wish, part of the magic goes into the wish, and part goes... somewhere else. The part that goes into the wish is most of it; the other part is much smaller.]

[Somewhere else,] repeats Bella slowly.

[Yes. And no, before you ask, I have no idea where or what it does when it gets there.]

[Do you think you could watch it go wherever it goes if you were on the lookout for it while making a new wish?]

[Maybe,] he hazards.

[Have you had more opportunity to consider perfect recall or any of the other possibilities for things-to-do-with-more-hexes? Would Kolya like to not need sleep, maybe?]

[Actually... what sorts of things could I do with a pentagon?]

[Learn to speak Swahili or play the oboe or kick ass at Ultimate Frisbee or cook like a deity or do awesome parkour tricks? Make a neat magic device like my bike, only please nothing conspicuous because I don't want it to be too blatantly obvious to Libby that I'm passing you coins?]

[I would like some pentagons, please,] he requests. [I'll spend them all on languages.]

Bella sends him twenty.

About thirty seconds later: [Can I have some squares, too, actually?]

[Are you out? Sure.] She gives him twenty of those too.

[Learning languages with magic feels like cheating,] he reports, after another minute or two. [And the amount of magic a pentagon spends on who-knows-what is the same as the amount of magic a square spends on doing its actual job.]

[That's interesting... does a hex send a pentagon-sized amount wherever-it-goes?]

[I think so. I might as well take that perfect memory now; I seem to keep needing it.]

Bella sends him a hex, tapping her fingers on her knee with intent impatience.

Very, very shortly afterward: [Yes. And looking back at triangles, I don't think they spend any extra at all. But a square spends a triangle's worth of mystery magic.]

[That's very peculiar. I wonder what the mystery magic could be doing.]

[I still can't figure that part out,] he admits.

[It's not contributing to the wish. Is it just... waste magic? Released to no effect at all? A natural inefficiency of the coining process?]

[I don't think so?] he says. [I do get a certain sense of... futility from it. But I'm not sure how reliable that impression is.]

[Futility,] repeats Bella. [So it's... doing something pointless? Doing a tiny amount of work towards an astronomical task? Doing something that will be undone?]

[I can't quite tell.]

[I might need to watch more different people doing magic, in case it has something to do with the caster.]

[You can come lurk by the magic door and Alice and I can come up with stuff to do,] Bella suggests.

[Alice, what fun things can you think of to do with coins of various sizes so Lazarus can watch magic do stuff?] Bella asks.

[Rain of jellybeans and subsequent cleanup is a couple pentagons. If you're low on fabric or anything this would be a good time to do some batches of conjuration. I think I'll add super-speed - to match my brain's version of same. And if we need something else I may want to gain the power to become insubstantial. And I haven't learned all the languages there are yet.]

[I love you,] Alice says cheerfully, and makes his way to the appropriate magic door.

Bella meets him in the lair. [Ready when you are, Lazarus,] she says, including Alice in the call too.

[...What the hell...?] he says, sounding confused and vaguely affronted, as he trots down the stairs. [Oh. Why would you do that? Did you not know—? I guess not. Alice, you have a native power that protects you against mental tampering,] he says. [And it clashes horribly with the hex on top of it. Ick.]

[Hello to you too,] he says, giggling again.

[Like... half of my native power?] Bella asks, tilting her head. [That would explain why his didn't fail for redundancy like mine did, if it's only half. We can peel away the extra if it's bothering you.]

[It is bothering me a lot,] says Lazarus. [It's like you took a pretty little decorative object of some kind and then covered it in glue. And I wouldn't say it's half of your power, exactly. They don't look at all alike.]

[I'm defended against inspection and tampering, he's defended against just tampering - what's the difference beyond that?] Bella asks curiously. [Alice, please warn him before making wishes; we want him to supervise them carefully.]

[Ooh, that is pretty,] says Lazarus. [The differences are, um... I'd almost call them a matter of personality? Your power has that very distinctive exactness to it; Alice's is more, how do I put this, friendly. Or maybe friendly isn't the right word. It's close, though.]

Bella laughs helplessly. [Friendly! But - wait a second. I'm pretty sure an agony beam like mine would bounce off me, for tampering and not inspection reasons. How come it works on Alice if he's all natively-anti-tampering? Because it so, so does.]

[Um,] says Lazarus.

[Well, I don't have another example ready to hand, I don't tamper with Alice's brain very often. In your professional opinion, what's going on there?]

[In my professional opinion, I have no idea,] he says primly.

[Would it help you make a professional determination if you saw it done?] Bella asks. [You know, in a professional capacity. I'm really not trying to go out of my way to discomfit you even though it is entertaining, but it seems worthwhile to know how this works.]

[Thanks,] he says dryly, [I'm glad you cleared that up. And okay, if you must know, I guess I can stand to watch. It probably would help.]

Without further ado, Bella hits Alice with some mid-pentagon-range (expecting smaller amounts to be indistinct), flavor: rattlesnake venom. She looks in Lazarus's direction expectantly, through the magic doors.

Alice closes his eyes and smiles. Mmm, fun.

[My professional insight is that he likes it.]

[No shit,] says Alice, leaning into Bella's hand with a reasonable approximation of a purr.

[No, I'm serious,] he says. [It makes a difference. Your power prevents mental tampering, but that's not, strictly speaking, what it's for. It's for...] He trails off contemplatively.

[Hedging out unwanted tampering? Unwanted classes of tampering, unwanted sources?]

[No, not quite. 'Unwanted classes' is closest, but it doesn't really get there. You might say that an anti-tampering power of the kind you thought he had is a 'look, but don't touch' power, and what he has is a 'touch, but don't change'. For our purposes, the agony beam qualifies as, uh, touching.]

Bella would be hypocritical to chide Alice for that, so she doesn't. Instead she says, [So he's immune to mind control, memory alteration, forcible unconsciousness, that sort of thing - but perhaps not to illusions in general, certainly not to any form of communicative power, and not to the agony beam.]

[I'm not sure about illusions,] says Lazarus, choosing not to respond to Alice at all. [Illusions might be a borderline case. But yes, communicative powers and the agony beam will work just fine. Clearly.]

[Well, now we have a productive series of experiments for the use of further coins,] Bella says.

[Joy,] says Lazarus.

Alice giggles.

Bella starts playing with pentagon-sized illusions, notifying Lazarus each time, and she gives the go-ahead for Alice to rain jellybeans.

[Good to know you're having fun,] he says, amused. [Illusions look really weird.]

Bella cycles through some more illusory senses, including touch, since she's not sure if the agony beam is technically "illusory pain" or just disconnected "real pain". Alice gets "trapped in quicksand" and smells "lavender" and tastes "risotto" and hears "Beethoven's fifth". Bella can detect all these things herself, too, where applicable, but she thinks that's probably only because she's controlling the illusions: they originate inside her brain and are allowed to be there on a probationary basis. [Look weird how? Alice, illusion me something, let me make sure it's only mine I can experience.]

Alice illusions her a rain of cuddly pillows (visual and tactile), or tries to.

[Well, I know what you did 'cause I can read your mind, but I don't see them or feel them,] Bella says, squinting at the ceiling.

[You are definitely buried in illusory pillows,] says Lazarus. [It's remarkably cute.]

Bella shakes herself, chuckling. [Okay, but, what looks weird about illusions to you? Of pillows or otherwise?]

[They don't exist. They are very insistent about that. Absolutely no room for doubt. It's just weird looking at something whose most obvious feature is that it isn't really there.]

Bella laughs. [I wonder if I can wish myself an illusion-detection power? I can imagine blundering into some problems by simply failing to note the presence of illusions when I hadn't been planning to advertise my native power. Then I can look at things that are Obviously Not There with you.]

[I think that's a fine idea,] says Lazarus.

[I think you're adorable,] says Alice.

Bella turns over this notion in her head until she's satisfied with her design, then says, [Watch this, nonbird,] and wishes it.

[Fascinating!]

[Ye-e-es?] Bella prompts.

[I may be anthropomorphizing these things a little too much, but I got the impression your native power went 'oh, all right' and let the wish through.]

Bella cackles. [I do like my power, but I won't hold with it being inconvenient,] she says merrily. [Are you catching any more interesting tidbits about stray magic?]

[Nothing conclusive. I might have to go away and think about it for a while in order to get anywhere. You're right about how convenient perfect recall is, by the way.]

Alice awws. Alice awws so much.

Bella comes to a halt with a flourish and curtseys.

Alice hugs her, because how could you not?

[Yes please,] Bella says, hugging Alice back.

Off he goes!