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Cam studies. He studies madly. The next week elapses with him having very little sense of individual days. He doesn't want anyone to know anything special is up, so he goes to a movie with Renée and to a friend's house after school to play Nintendo games and Charlie gets his weekly phone call and he shows up to his classes and gets his homework adequately done. But other than that he studies. He wants to be fluent in this thing inside three months if possible. It's easier than Spanish, he's motivated, he can use it in everyday conversations as he asks passing animals and convenient plants how smart they are (dogs: smarter than goats; squirrels: about goat level; his friend's hamster: dumb as a rock; shrubs: way dumber than trees; indoor potted rosemary: just a step above grass) and chats with Grace, he's basically dropping himself in an immersion course with some inconvenient English here and there so he can interact with humans. He thinks three months is ambitious but reasonable.
He's not actually doing that many spells. He does wheedle tofu into tastiness on a nightly basis, and when he feels a cold coming on he looks up a spell about that, but he wants to know what he's doing before he gets going on what he most wants to be doing, because he wants to be doing big things. He swore to oppose death. He meant that.
Today he is preparing to oppose death in his backyard. It's threatening rain and he doesn't want to be all the way down the street with Leafy if the clouds open up. The jerk tree doesn't talk to him if he doesn't talk to it and it's perfectly serviceable as something to sit under, anyway.
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lifes_sake
"We track ongoing Ordeals," Matilda explains, lowering her arms and turning to face him. "Needing help is sort of the definition of being on Ordeal. We can't be there for all of them, but we try to get to the ones who are in the most trouble. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to try to hide you, but we're not sure who."
"And the outfits are for fun," says Jellybean. "Duh."
"And the outfits are for fun," says Jellybean. "Duh."
lifes_sake
"I don't know who'd want to hide me besides you-know-who. Is it relatively safe to name it, do you know? I haven't been in touch with wizards besides you. No one was home."
"It's not dangerous to name it, I just think its name is silly," says Jellybean unrepentantly.
"No one was home because it's trying to put out the sun again," Matilda adds. "Don't worry, the wizards of Earth have it covered."
"No one was home because it's trying to put out the sun again," Matilda adds. "Don't worry, the wizards of Earth have it covered."
lifes_sake
"It told me its name was Iggy when it was posing as somebody's orphaned pet rock. Put out the sun? Again?"
"Stars and star-centred cultures call it the Starsnuffer," says Matilda. "It's an old trick. But as you can see, it hasn't managed it yet in this solar system."
lifes_sake
"And no one has figured out how to prevent this from being such a systematic problem?" Cam asks, filing away the information that stars are people too.
"What do you mean?" says Matilda.
lifes_sake
"I mean I'm really confused about what Iggy wants and what it can and can't do and how much attention it's paying to what things. I am not coming up with any explanations that don't have it incompetent at using its powers, incompetent at directing its efforts, motivated to achieve ends that are not completely described by 'kill and entropize things', or playing by approximately gamelike rules for no obvious reason. If it wants me dead, why am I not dead? Why didn't it choose a faster method so you wouldn't have been here in time? Why isn't it trying again right now? If it has any chance of successfully putting out the sun - if extinguishing stars is a thing it routinely does - then why did it spend a couple hours talking to me? How much does it know and how does it find it out? If I knew the answers to these questions and had been studying magic longer than a week I would probably be able to come up with some reasonable things to do about stars, but my manual is not all that forthcoming about some topics."
"It doesn't have the juice," says Jellybean. "Talk is cheap. Putting out stars takes effort. And you're dripping with wards - did you do all that before you went to sleep? It probably picked the cheapest way to kill you, and that means not blasting through them to just smoke you on the spot."
"Nobody can predict where we're going to show up, not even them," says Matilda. "And none of them can pay attention to everything, everywhere, all the time. If we hadn't shown up, you would be dead. If - heh - Iggy's busy enough with the Sun, it might be a while before it notices it failed."
"People do stop it from putting the stars out," Jellybean adds. "They're called wizards. You might've heard of them. But the wizards don't exactly have a direct line on what the Powers are up to. There's no good way to ward a star, not even if you've got the power to spare, it'd be a huge waste. So they just have to wait for it to take a shot."
"Nobody can predict where we're going to show up, not even them," says Matilda. "And none of them can pay attention to everything, everywhere, all the time. If we hadn't shown up, you would be dead. If - heh - Iggy's busy enough with the Sun, it might be a while before it notices it failed."
"People do stop it from putting the stars out," Jellybean adds. "They're called wizards. You might've heard of them. But the wizards don't exactly have a direct line on what the Powers are up to. There's no good way to ward a star, not even if you've got the power to spare, it'd be a huge waste. So they just have to wait for it to take a shot."
lifes_sake
"Okay, but," says Cam, "when Iggy stopped pretending it was somebody's pet rock, it was like everything around me stopped. Is that not expensive? Because I can sure think of uses for inexpensive time pausing... I did do all my wards before I went to sleep, I was spooked. You keep saying them, is Iggy a bunch of people? Isn't it supposed to be all Lone? Also, please tell me what a fight over a star looks like, how do wizards notice before the star snuffs it, what do they do to interrupt the process?"
"I don't know what's with the time-pausing," says Jellybean, shaking his head.
"Me neither," says Matilda. "Iggy's not a bunch of people, but there are other Powers. Just because they're nicer doesn't mean we're actually on their side."
"Me neither," says Matilda. "Iggy's not a bunch of people, but there are other Powers. Just because they're nicer doesn't mean we're actually on their side."
lifes_sake
"Fair enough," says Cam. "If I was a Power I'd have a lot of friendly objects set up to watch stuff for me, like how Grace told the manual to find me a spell when I couldn't breathe." He reaches over to his notebook and pats her.
"If I'd been faster you could've had time to say the whole spell," mourns Grace. "I'm so glad you're okay!"
"Me too," Cam tells her. And to Matilda and Jellybean he says, "Were you going to explain how fighting over stars work or don't you know?"
"If I'd been faster you could've had time to say the whole spell," mourns Grace. "I'm so glad you're okay!"
"Me too," Cam tells her. And to Matilda and Jellybean he says, "Were you going to explain how fighting over stars work or don't you know?"
"Well, I don't know how most wizards do it," says Matilda. "We've rebooted a star once. It wasn't inhabited, but it went out while we were passing through."
lifes_sake
"And, what, you just tell it 'wake up'? Do you - actually, you know what, my question about how you knew I needed help has not been answered, do your manuals helpfully update your directories in real time worldwide so you can show up when kids are Ordeal-ing or do you have some other kind of sensory network set up, also how did you get here, I want to learn to teleport too."
"Ooh, worldgates," giggles Jellybean. "Worldgates are fun. You wanna go learn about worldgates?"
Matilda glances at Jellybean with a fond smile and then returns her attention to Cam. "Our manual taps the directory to see who's on Ordeal, and we have a few spells set up to check how well someone's doing so we know if we need to intervene. But the directory was really reluctant to mention you. I think the Powers were interfering, but I'm not sure why."
Matilda glances at Jellybean with a fond smile and then returns her attention to Cam. "Our manual taps the directory to see who's on Ordeal, and we have a few spells set up to check how well someone's doing so we know if we need to intervene. But the directory was really reluctant to mention you. I think the Powers were interfering, but I'm not sure why."
lifes_sake
"You guys share a manual? I'm not sure why the Powers would interfere unless they've been paying - again, inexplicably allocated - attention. And if my various grandiose ideas have more substance to them than I'm quite sure of."
"The Powers pay personal attention to every single person who takes the Oath," says Matilda. "That's how you get your wizardry in the first place."
lifes_sake
"Yes, but - have they been reading my notebook?" He picks up Grace and holds her close to his chest. "Is that the sort of thing they can do? I haven't been going around publicly stirring things up."
"Nobody but Cam is allowed to read me!" shrills Grace.
"Nobody but Cam is allowed to read me!" shrills Grace.
"I don't know," says Matilda.
"They're not really forthcoming about how they work," says Jellybean.
"They're not really forthcoming about how they work," says Jellybean.
lifes_sake
"Speaking of how things work, the way you busted the air shell thing - that didn't sound very spell-like, it was all freeform, does that work for everybody or just you?" Cam asks Jellybean.
"It works for me a lot better than it does for most people," he says. "I'm just really persuasive, I guess. Anybody can do it, but most of the time stuff just doesn't listen to you unless you work the spell up properly."
lifes_sake
"So it's a matter of persuasion and I can probably freeform little details on Grace but not the jerk tree in the backyard?" hazards Cam.
Jellybean grins. "Yeah, exactly."
lifes_sake
"Hmm, okay. So is it just the two of you or is there, like, a vigilante hey-kids-dying-because-they-wanted-to-
They exchange a glance.
"It's just the two of us," says Jellybean.
"But if you wanted to sign up..." says Matilda.
"We could maybe work something out," says Jellybean.
"It's just the two of us," says Jellybean.
"But if you wanted to sign up..." says Matilda.
"We could maybe work something out," says Jellybean.