"The snow-circle's fun," Petaal says happily.

"Okay then. May as well start going over the words then. Repeat after me..." She goes through the Svaaric words of the spell, one at a time.

Petaal learns them! He is better at it than Kas is at French, perhaps because he's trying harder, perhaps because he has to learn fewer things.

"I plan to actually learn Svaaric at some point, but only after I have enough magic basics to strike off on my own and maybe only after I get an alethiometer," remarks Isabella after Petaal has the words down. "Now, that particular spell does invoke Yambe Akka, so if the goddesses-just-won't-listen-to-you hypothesis is correct, it's particularly unlikely to work. We can pick a spell that doesn't refer directly to a goddess in that case, but that could easily not work either."

"We'll see," Petaal says cheerfully.

"Yambe Akka does winter," explains Isabella. "Among other things, most notably death."

"Yeah, you mentioned that before," says Kas.

"I suppose I did, didn't I. I don't know if, theologically speaking, she is actually involved with death in general or just with witches' deaths. I only know enough religion to get good results with my magic."

"Well," says Petaal, "hopefully she won't kill us for trying to cast her nice pretty spell."

"That's not really her style. I mean, she is a death goddess, but that doesn't mean she kills people - well, it does, but - another portfolio item is mercy. Witches call for her when they can't bear whatever they have to face if they stay alive. She's the alternative to suffering. I think she'd happily retire if suffering ceased to be. My ultimate goal in life is for Yambe Akka to spend the rest of eternity sitting on a beach sipping interesting cocktails. So to speak."

"Thanks," laughs Isabella.

"Good luck with your adorable ultimate goal. What do witches die of, anyway?"

"Besides violence? Violence - including magic - is probably the most common - clan wars and the like. Otherwise some combination of age and - loneliness or boredom. I think the oldest living witch is just shy of a thousand. We tend to die off if we're the last of our clan and don't get adopted into another, or after going through about four mortal husbands, or after having become incredibly skilled at something and ceasing to take students. My great-great-aunt Tayeba Kessa died very abruptly after completing her six-year tour of the world. I think that was the last thing she wanted to do. I should be fine if I avoid personal fights, the Olympics don't get involved in a war, and I don't run out of things to do."

"...How do people run out of things to do?" he wonders.

"Don't look at me, I don't know."

He cracks up.

"I mean, seriously, languages alone, by the time you learned them all they would all be different," she exclaims. "Let alone stuff like - I don't think even boring people who do nothing but watch television could keep up with television at the rate it's produced now! Maybe it was reasonable to get bored and die a few thousand years ago. Fewer civilizations, less stuff, I could imagine not wanting to just get to know mortal after mortal and then watch the ones you liked die, maybe not everyone can hold their interest cataloguing plants or something. Not now, though. There is so much to do."

"I know," he says.

"So yeah. Making this understood is part of my usher-the-death-goddess-into-contented-retirement plan."

"Got a plan for the rest of us?" he jokes.

"Figure out how to get you guys at least as immortal as witches. First I need to learn how to do that at all - hence intensive study of magic, although the fact that I know the problem's been worked on before makes me not completely optimistic - and then I need to scale it up. Just scaling stuff up would be good, really. Minor blessings, cast on an entire population, could have some nice statistical effects. Maybe human scientists could get a leg up on solving the problem themselves."

"Cute," says Kas. "Have fun with that."

"Will do. Want to be a guinea pig when I think of something worth trying?"

"Sure!"