"Hello," says the deck of cards, in a slightly robotic voice.

Lexi blinks. She looks around for an electronic device of some sort that could've said that.

The deck unshuffles itself.

"Eep!" exclaims Lexi in a soft voice. It probably won't even carry to Jessica's parents, who are out in the back garden, let alone Jessica herself in the hall bathroom.

"I contain limitless power," it says in that same slightly robotic monotone.

"You're a deck of cards," objects Lexi. "You're talking, and you're a deck of cards."

"I am a magical artifact," says the deck of cards. The cards tuck themselves back into the pack, and the whole thing scoots toward her.

"Bella will just flip," predicts Lexi, and she scoops up the cards into her hand.

"To activate limitless power," says the deck, "speak the activation password."

"The activation password?"

"The activation password is: Of my own heart and will, I choose to command you."

"I dunno, maybe I should wait for Bella," says Lexi.

"I contain limitless power," it reminds her.

"Yeah! She'll know what to do with it," says Lexi. "She'll flip, like I said, I think maybe she should have you."

"To activate limitless power, speak the password."

"I told you I wanna wait for Bella," says Lexi.

"You have the potential," it says.

"Does Bella not?"

"I do not know," it says. "You have the potential. Many people do not."

"Well, can't you check her when I go home later?"

"To speak with you takes power," it says. "If you accept me, we will have more power."

"...Wait, didn't you say limitless, how does more limitless even be an option?"

"I contain limitless power," it says. "Without a master I cannot use it."

"Right, I think Bella would be a good master for limitless power, if I had it instead she'd want to tell me what to do all the time."

"If you do not accept me," it says, "you will not have limitless power."

"Yeah, I know, that's the idea, I want Bella to have it instead, I'll go home in like an hour and a half and then I'll give you to her."

"If you do not accept me, you will not have limitless power. It takes power to talk to you. I cannot sustain this for long. If you do not accept me, you will not have limitless power."

"You can't sustain this for long? Like, you can't wait an hour and a half for Bella?" asks Lexi.

"I cannot wait."

"Not even like five minutes?"

"I cannot wait," it repeats.

"Oh, geez, okay, I hope Bella doesn't guilt me about starving orphans and cancerous grandmas every single time I want to do something fun - Of my - I need the phrase thing again?"

"Of my own heart and will, I choose to command you."

"Of my own heart and will I choose to command you," parrots Lexi.

"What's that?" asks Lexi.

"Is this part of the limitless power thing? I need to go talk to my sister," Lexi calls into the void. "Where am I?"

"You said that already, you said I was going to have it, how do I use it?" Lexi complains.

"You are using it right now," the deck says uncomfortingly.

Bella pushes the front door to the house open.

Bella makes a disgruntled noise and lunges forward, seizing the white-haired guy by the front of his shirt.

"...Now what?"

"How do I fly?" exclaims Bella. There's little color-feathered wings extending from her heels like she's Hermes, but she can't feel them to even try flapping.

"Try wanting to," Brilliance snaps, and then the distant figure glows brightly and Brilliance hauls himself forward and fires another 'Fuck you!'.

"I do want to!" shrieks Bella, trying to help out by aiming him so he doesn't have to wrench around in her hand like that. "I'm not going anywhere!"

In spare seconds between mystical profanities, Brilliance explains, "He talked somebody into unison. There's someone else in there. If we hit him hard enough to knock him out, they'll separate."

"Will they be okay?"

"Probably," says Brilliance. "Except for the part where they almost helped destroy their own planet." And, yelled at the distant figure, "Fuck you!"

Bella continues her fly-aim-fly-aim pattern. "Should I be doing anything I'm not?"

"I'm getting about two percent of the power output I'm used to," he frets. "I don't know what's wrong, but - it would probably help if you cast some of these with me. Sorry about the incantation," he adds.

"I'll deal. FUCK YOU!" she hollers at the planet-destroying white-haired dude.

Bella flies forward to relocate the blasted opponent. "Where are we?" she asks.

"Fuck you!" Bella incants at the white-haired dude, and then she circles around to get him again from another angle. "Fuck you!"

"Fuck you fuck you," mutters Bella, zooming faster, since it doesn't seem to matter how loudly or enthusiastically she says it and since she's getting the hang of aiming, "fuck you."

"Oh," says Lexi, dazed. "I found you. I was looking for you. I found a pack of cards that said it had limitless power. And I thought that sounded like something you should have."

Bella sobs and pulls her twin up into a hug.

"You're dressed funny," observes Lexi. "And I thought I'd wait and bring you the cards - but it said it couldn't wait - so I figured I'd take it and then I'd let you boss me except on weekends - but then turned out I didn't know how to drive the thing."

"Lexi, there is some seriously screwed-up magic crap going on," says Bella, "is why I'm dressed funny - and why didn't you call me?"

"I figured you'd be driving, by then," Lexi blinks. "...The car, I mean, not the limitless power."

"Did you fix the programming issue?" Bella asks him.

"Programming... issue?"

"I don't completely understand it myself, but Brilliance here is some kind of magic weapon, he comes apart, the part with a personality isn't on board with weapon-ing but it got split, I found the personality and you found the rest."

"I guess that explains why it talked like a robot?"

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "No more nasty control program. I'm freeeeeeeeee," and the deck leaps up into the air and flies around in a gleeful circle.

"But, I wanted to give Bella limitless power so she can feed cancerous grandmas and heal starving orphans or whatever," says Lexi, "was it lying, or what?"

"...Yyyyes and no," he says, halting in midair. "It wasn't lying about having the power, just about letting you use it."

"So... now you have it?" Lexi asks. "What're you going to do with it?"

"I second that question," Bella agrees. "Especially since I'm still dressed up like I'm going to an anime convention."

"Uh... nothing?" says Brilliance. "I'm pretty much gonna do nothing with it? If you wanna change back, I can do that," he adds. "Or you can. Just - want your old clothes back, like you wanted flying."

"...Will I still be able to fly if I do that?" Bella wants to know.

"What, he doesn't get a lecture about Using His Power For Good, like I did every time we played superheroes starting from when we were six?" Lexi says.

"I'm pretty sure he's designed to destroy shit. 'Nothing' is next best," Bella says quietly.

"You can still fly without the Barrier Jacket, but it's harder," says Brilliance. "With me you kind of get flying for free. ...Uh, not that I'm inviting lectures or anything, but technically my magic can be used for things other than wrecking shit. Yours too. I mean, I'm supposed to be a weapon, not a healing device, but I'm also not supposed to kick the shit out of myself and break my control program, so..."

"Would you be willing to teach me and Lexi how to use our own magic, before you go find a comfortable place to do your nothing in?" Bella asks.

"I don't really know how to use your magic," he says. "...But I've probably got a better guess than you do. Okay, maybe."

"Also, we'd appreciate a ride home," Bella adds. "...Or back to wherever you put our car. I guess that's Jessica's house."

Lexi sticks her head in the front door. "Hi, Jessica! Um, a thing came up, Bella showed up to get me, sorry I disappeared but I had to talk to her, I gotta go, I'm sorry!" And she grabs her bag and ducks out over Jessica's confused spluttering.

"You wanna drive?" Bella asks.

"I'll drive," Lexi says, hopping into the relevant seat, "you geek out with magic with your new superweapon."

Brilliance sighs and tucks himself into Bella's pocket.

Bella has quietly willed herself back into her normal clothes while Lexi was making excuses to Jessica, and does now in fact have pockets; she climbs into the passenger seat. "So - why the profane incantation?" she asks. "Where'd that come from? Where do incantations in general come from?"

"Spells are named the first time you use 'em," says Brilliance. "And if you don't make an incantation on purpose, it ends up being something you were thinking or saying at the time."

"Did you make that one up today or did you already have an energy blast spell when I found you?"

"Made it up today," he says. "I've got other energy blast spells, but I didn't use any of 'em."

"Are either me or Lexi in any danger of accidentally casting spells?"

"Uh... maybe? I don't really know," he says. "Probably not big ones. But if I were you I wouldn't go around wishing really hard for somebody to take a lightning bolt to the face unless you actually wanna throw one."

"But not just by talking; if I decide to curse someone out I'm not going to knock them through a wall with pretty colored lights? It'd be a wished-for result?"

"Yeah," he agrees. "I can say 'fuck you' until my cards turn white again and nobody's gonna get blasted unless I'm trying for it."

"Okay. So spells happen if magic people want stuff enough - then why haven't we ever cast things before?"

"Maybe because it's way harder without a device," he says, "I know that's true. Maybe because you didn't want things enough, or didn't want them the right way, or didn't know you could do it."

"What do devices do to make it easier? And is there someplace we can go get them? Ones that don't have other plans, I mean."

"Not this planet, that's for sure," he says. "I've felt other devices around, but never more than a handful at a time, and I'm pretty sure they were just visiting."

"Okay, so we get to do without at least till we manage to travel between planets. Is that generally pretty doable or are we going to be stuck?"

"I have no idea," he says. "It's easy for me. But I'm not, you know, hugely keen on meeting anybody who manufactures devices for a living, considering what my manufacturers thought of me."

"Are they all intelligent?"

"Yes... maybe? Kind of? Depends what you mean by intelligent. I mean, at one end there's me, and at the other end there's what amounts to a baseball bat that takes voice commands."

"Well, that's kind of - dodgy, I guess, but I'd be surprised if literally all of them resented what they do."

"The more powerful the device, the more it can think for itself," says Brilliance. "At least, I'm pretty sure. I haven't met that many devices."

"Are you really going to go find someplace to hang out and do nothing?" asks Bella after a silence.

"Oh, so you are gonna lecture it," snorts Lexi.

"No. Well. Not very much. But if it's that dramatically easier to do magic with device help, and if they're hard to come by and potentially resentful anyway, it's worth trying to talk one into it."

"...I dunno," Brilliance admits. "I mean, the one thing I know for sure I wanna do with my future is not blow up any inhabited planets; past that, I haven't really thought about it much."

"Well, for the short term, it's very kind of you to help us figure out the magic we command ourselves, anyway."

"Can we magic our homework done, that would be cool, I was going to do mine with Jessica but then stuff happened."

"I really don't know - what sorts of things can magic do?" Bella asks Brilliance.

"Probably not your homework," snorts Brilliance.

"Okay, but in general - conjure stuff out of nothing? You set up a shield during the fight; can that scale? Last a long time? Could I power generators with slightly more controlled magic energy blasts if I learned enough electrical engineering?"

"I don't know everything magic can do," says Brilliance. "And I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. What would you do with a magical shield that lasted a long time? Use it as an umbrella?"

"I'd be safe in war zones with a persistent shield, if I decided to fuss with those instead of working on peaceable stuff. And did you mention healing spells - how good are those, how long do they take?"

"Um, depends?" he says. "Pretty good, I guess. Better than what this planet's got, as far as I can tell. And you'd be prety safe in war zones with just your Barrier Jacket."

"I'm concerned about scale, if I spend sixty hours a day just healing people that's a lot of people but it's not going to add up to as many as I'd like. Barrier Jacket - that's the magical girl getup with the dress and the footwings and the little cape and the armwarmers and stuff?"

"Yep," says Brilliance. "It'll stand up to a lot, especially with me behind it."

"Why does it look like that?"

"Barrier Jackets are kind of like incantations," he says. "If you're trying for something when you make it, that's what you'll get, and if you're not then it just... ends up being something."

"...Well, I didn't know there was anything to try for, but you did," Bella points out as Lexi pulls the car into the driveway and they both hop out.

"I wasn't really thinking about designing a great set of clothes at the time," he says. "Turned out pretty good, though, didn't it?"

"At least it has reasonable coverage, I wouldn't want to be going around like Wonder Woman trying to get people to aim at defended spots two inches across."

"Oh, that's not how it works," says Brilliance. "Well, it is and it isn't. How much of you it covers is related to how strongly defended you are, but you could take a 'fuck you' to the face in that thing and walk away. It'd hurt, but it wouldn't kill you."

"Can I switch outfits without you helping?" Bella asks.

"...Kinda sorta," he says. "The Barrier Jacket's another thing you get for free through me that you could probably manage on your own but it'd be harder and I wouldn't know how."

"I think you should keep it, Bella, sounds super-handy," opines Lexi, flopping onto the couch.

Bella rolls her eyes and heads upstairs to their room. "So - basically - how do spells work? How are they fueled, how are they constructed and directed?"

"You okay?" Bella asks, taking him out of her pocket.

"Not really," he says, his cardboard surface still trembling a little.

She puts him on her side of the two-chaired desk she and Lexi share. "What's wrong?"

"I really don't like it when people talk about me like I'm a - thing," he says. "I really don't like it."

"...So, male pronouns, then?"

"Sure," he says. "I don't really care which ones as long as they're ones you use for people."

"The rest-of-you looked like a guy and the voice you have sounds like a guy's," Bella observes. She shouts down the stairs. "Hey, Lexi, Brilliance says he's a he!"

"Whatever!" Lexi shouts back.

"Thanks," snorts Brilliance.

"You're welcome," sighs Bella. "Were you going to tell me how quick healing spells are? Or don't you know?"

"I don't really know, and I think it depends, and I don't really know what it depends on."

"Okay, I guess I've got a research project. What's the simplest spell you can think of that I might conceivably want to do here in my bedroom, so I can practice doing magic at all without you - doing whatever it is you did?"

"Um... Shield, maybe?"

"Okay. I just - try saying it and wanting it, to start?"

"Yep!"

And there it is, in Brilliance's glowing rotation of colours.

"Does all magic look about like this?" she asks.

"...Huh?"

"The colors, the design. It's pretty. Why does it look like that, or can't you see when you're a deck of cards?"

"Oh," he says. "The colours are mine. I guess you picked that up from me. People's mana colours sync to their devices sometimes, or the other way around, if the match is good. The design is mine too, but that comes with the spell; if we learned a spell with a different style, we'd get whatever its design was when we used it."

"Where does one get spells? Are they so easy to make up that I don't need to worry about it or does it make sense to trade spells with other - magic people? What am I exactly?"

"You're a magic person, I guess," says Brilliance. "I dunno."

"What, there's not a word for magic people? And what about where I get spells, do you not know?"

"I don't know what you mean by where you get them. I know where I get them - I make them, or somebody installs them, or I copy them from somewhere - but you're not a device, I don't know if you work the same way."

"Well, I can clearly do a shield, did I just - download all your spells when I was dressed up or something?" she asks quizzically.

"I think it's only the ones we used," he says.

"What other ones do you have?"

"Mostly ones you don't want me using in here unless you really hate your walls," he says. "A couple searches, I guess."

"What can you search for?"

"People I've met. Things I've seen. Nearby magic."

"That sounds really useful. I guess I could test the hypothesis that I only got the spells we used while I was in costume, if you'll tell me the incantation for one of those?"

"Sure," he says. "'Area Search'."

"What all do I need to have in mind? The thing I'm looking for - anything else?"

"Nope, that's about it."

Bella decides to see if she can "find" Lexi. "Area Search."

Nope.

"Nothing. Is there some step I could've missed or do I just not have it - installed?"

"Area Search," Bella attempts, still looking for Lexi.

She produces a little multicoloured blob of light that flits away in search of her sister.

"Cool. So spells are contagious," she says brightly.

"Bella, is this blob of light yours or the device's?" calls Lexi.

"It's mine! I'm learning spells!" Bella calls.

"You can make it go away," says Brilliance helpfully, dispelling his.

Bella wants-it-away, and it stops feeding her information. "Can I make those invisible?" she asks. "Or are they all glowy?"

"I've never done an invisible one," he says. "You could wrap it in a barrier, I guess."

"How do those work?"

"You remember when we went in that house and there was nobody there, even though there were people there? That's a barrier," he explains. "People and magic inside it can't see or touch people and magic outside it or vice versa, but stuff like houses and tables is still in both. If there was a way to put a kind of - one-way barrier around a search spell, then most people wouldn't see it running around. I guess anybody who's good with barriers could still tell."

"Okay. Is there an incantation for barriers?"

"You can do 'em without," he says. "Well, I can."

"Okay... how do I do them, then?"

"Want one," he suggests.

"If I want it around a finding spell, do I do the finding spell first or second?"

"Good question," he says, "never done it, no idea, maybe you have to do them both at once?"

"...Okay, I guess if I'm doing the barrier without an incantation that's not physically impossible." She focuses on her more complicated want. "Area search."

There's a feeling like a word being just on the tip of your tongue, and no spell.

"I - feel like I almost did it. Is that what being about to make up a new spell feels like? Should I come up with a new incantation?"

"Try that!" he says encouragingly.

"...Invisible Search," she attempts.

The little blob forms, and seals itself inside a mirage-like distortion in the air, and darts off. By the time it reaches the hall, it's completely invisible, but still transmitting its location to Bella.

"Cool!" She dismisses it again; she is already pretty confident about Lexi's location. "Okay, is there a spell to fly without you helping, I want to be able to do that."

"Maybe," he says. "I wouldn't even know where to start, though. I can fly naturally."

"Lucky you." Bella closes her eyes and tries just wanting in an upward direction, like she did when she had the aurora-colored wings at her heels.

This does not work.

"Well," she says, "just wanting doesn't do the trick. Maybe I can make up an incantation for it. Does it have to be one that isn't - already in use somewhere?"

"Nope, doesn't matter," he says.

"Flight," says Bella insistently.

Her feet acquire little sprays of multicoloured light-feathers.

"This feels - effortful. Not a lot, just like - carrying a fork across the room or something, but I notice it," says Bella, hovering slightly and peering at her footwings. It doesn't seem to matter how she moves her actual feet; the mana-feathers are largely cosmetic additions.

"I like the feathers," says Brilliance. "Yeah, like I said, with me you get it for free. By yourself it takes effort."

Bella settles back to the floor and dismisses the spell. "Uh, am I likely to, like, run out of - something? And fall out of the sky?"

"Mana," says Brilliance. "And I dunno, probably not unless you flew for six hours straight, but unless we're linked I can't actually tell exactly how much you've got."

"You didn't check when we were? Or did that not qualify as linking, what's linking?"

"Sure I did," he says, "I just can't feel it now. I don't know, there's different things you might call 'linking', the kind I meant is what happened when I put you in your Barrier Jacket."

"Is my mana supply not the sort of thing that will be about the same from occasion to occasion?" she asks. "Barrier Jacket," Bella adds, want-saying experimentally.

"Would you object to checking for me? I'd rather not crash."

"Sure, no problem," he says. His cardboard surface glimmers. "Looking pretty good - try flying again?"

"Flight."

"Yeah, you've got about three hours of flying in you at that rate," he says.

"Does it matter how fast I go, or how high up, or is that all free with maintenance cost? Where does more mana come from?" she asks, touching down and turning off the flight spell.

"More mana comes from you!" he says. "It generates faster when you're not actively using any, and I think fastest when you sleep - I don't exactly sleep, so I'm just guessing about that one."

"You don't ever seem to answer more than one question at a time," Bella observes, and she gets a notebook to write down questions she accumulates so she won't forget them even if asking them all as she thinks of them isn't going to work. "Is flying faster or higher than just a little off the ground free with maintenance mana?"

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "Serious speed boosts take more mana even when you're getting the flying for free, though."

"Would that be the sort of thing I could do accidentally just by trying to fly really fast or would I be doing a separate speed-boosting spell?"

"I'm not sure," he says.

"...How long do you think you'll want to hang around here, I need to know how aggressively to prioritize."

"More or less than a week?" she tries.

"I don't know," he says fretfully.

"So you might fuck off any second and maybe I should cut school tomorrow?" hazards Bella.

"I don't - I - maybe," he mutters.

"I should maybe cut school tomorrow? Because learning magic is a higher priority than school in the short term but I wouldn't do it if you were going to be here for a month because it'd make Charlie somewhere between worried and mad and probably wouldn't do my academic prospects any favors and I don't yet know if I'm going to wind up with enough magic to make school redundant."

Brilliance sighs.

"Okay, if you have no schedule and will produce none, me and this notebook are going to spend ten minutes prioritizing - unless there is a significant risk you will decide to flee to Beijing or wherever in the next ten minutes - and then we can see about making the most of the time you've got to spend on me?" Bella says, tapping up the notebook she's been writing her questions in. She tucks her feet between herself and the desk chair and starts scribbling.

"Have you been on Earth long?" she asks conversationally while she's drawing arrows between and numbering various questions.

"Oh... probably a hundred years or so," he says vaguely. "I wasn't really counting."

"No wonder you weren't substantially baffled by anime references." Write write.

"Yeah, seen some of that," he says. "It's amazing all the shit you pick up as a pack of cards."

"I guess Lexi found you in Jessica's house? How are you even hearing anything? Do you see? Smell? Feel?"

"Yeah," he says. "I don't know, how do you hear anything? I hear stuff by hearing it."

"I hear stuff with my ears. If something went wrong with my ears, I couldn't hear anymore," says Bella. "You don't have ears."

"That's weird," he says. "I hear stuff with magic."

"If something went wrong with your magic would you not be able to hear anymore?" inquires Bella, still scribbling away with most of her attention.

"...I think that's kind of like asking you 'if something went wrong with your body would you not be able to hear anymore?'," says Brilliance. "I mean, yes? Maybe? Kind of? Depends what? But that is not the likeliest problem. I don't really have likely problems; I'm supposed to be indestructible."

"You come apart," she points out. "What happens if someone separates your cards in any of various possible ways?"

"As long as I'm not frantically pushing myself apart from the inside, nothing," he says.

"So if Jessica played solitaire with you and lost the ace of spades down an air vent or whatever this basically had no effect."

"And I'd ask what happens if somebody bent or tore a card but if you might decide to go check out Mexico City or some completely other planet any second now," she says, putting her pencil down, "that's not where I wanna start; it's pretty generous of you to stick around at all now that the world is apparently no longer in danger of losing structural integrity. So what I want to know about is scaling. Can I give magic-ability to other people?"

"Nope," says Brilliance.

"But I can find other people who already have it with search spells, that's a parameter it can do."

"Yep!" says Brilliance.

Bella is taking diligent notes. "What'll happen if I run out of mana, besides my spells quitting on me?"

"No idea! Probably won't kill you, probably won't be fun."

"Do you know why my Barrier Jacket didn't appear when I tried to do that on my own?"

"I'm not even sure that spell's possible without a device. I don't know why, besides that it's just - devicey."

"Oof. Okay. How much mana does it take, relative to what I've got, to travel to other planets - and are they habitable to me?"

"You could do it," he says. "I don't know what your limit's like, but you've got a round trip in you and then some. I don't know what makes a planet habitable to you, but there's plenty more worlds with humans on 'em."

"How does one aim that kind of thing if one has not been to other planets before?"

"No idea," he says. "Me, I just use random dimensional transfers and then store the coordinates of anywhere I wanna go back to, but I don't know how to give you those."

"I've seen your teleport spell now, so I should be able to do it; what are the parameters that need to get specified there?"

"Um... where-ness?" he tries.

"I mean can I input things like 'the easternmost point of North America' or 'an unobserved part of a randomly chosen ice cream parlor that's open right now' or 'wherever Renée is', or do I have to know - latitude and longitude, or do I need to have been there, or do I need to know how far I'm going in what direction from my starting position, or what?"

"Uh, okay," he says. "Short-range teleportation spells will take criteria like those first ones - I did one to take us as far from people as possible. But they won't take you to another planet; I'm not even sure they'd get you to another continent. Dimensional transfer and long-range teleportation need something more precise. Coordinates aren't relative to your starting position. I can feel coordinates, and I'm pretty sure you can't, so I genuinely have no idea how to get you to work a dimensional transfer spell that's not random. And the random ones will take some environmental parameters, but I don't know what all the parameters are for an environment that won't kill you on the spot."

"Has to be close to one atmosphere of pressure - not sure how close - and within a certain temperature range and have oxygen and nothing toxic in the atmosphere and not be too full of radiation and have enough room in my landing spot for me to physically fit. Ideally it would also not blind or deafen me with excess light or noise or tear me apart with wind or projectiles or anything like that. I probably don't want to trust my life to my ability to list those sorts of things completely. What about 'has humans present' - or, no, if I can't do a nonrandom one I might never get home again, right?"

"I don't have a random dimensional transfer spell that'll teleport to somewhere with humans," he says. "Doesn't mean one doesn't exist. I wonder if you could make a shield that'll cover for the environmental stuff? I bet you could."

"Do you think I'd have to come up with an exhaustive list of 'environmental stuff' or is magic smart enough to cover for little gaps?"

"I think a shield could cover for the little gaps much better than a random dimensional transfer," he explains.

"And I guess I could stress-test it against some conditions by hopping to, like, Antarctica, or the upper atmosphere, where I can teleport or fly out if I have sudden reason to regret my decision. What's my mana recovery rate like?"

"Well, you're not back up to what you had before the fight yet," he says, "but you probably will be by tomorrow."

"Can you by any chance express that in terms of a percentage or made-up units of some kind?"

"I could if I'd been paying more attention. If I see what your full mana level's like and remember it, then I can start talking in percentages."

"Well, hopefully you'll still be here tomorrow when it's back up to baseline," Bella says. "I'll try to avoid doing any but the most critical-to-supervise experiments till then. Much as I'd like to just draw a barrier around myself and go flying just for fun."

"Thanks!" She peers at her notebook. "Any tips on figuring out healing spells?"

"No idea," says Brilliance. "Never tried one."

"Okay, but generally, what could go wrong if I start groping around blindly there, am I going to wind up giving people I'm trying to help diseases or killing them or whatever or will it just not work if I don't have it right?"

"It might do something weird but it won't do something harmful unless you mean it to," he says. "I think."

"What does 'weird' mean here?"

"Weird," he says. "Unpredictable. Unexpected."

"I didn't -" She sighs, and stops, and says, "I would like examples, if you can think of some."

"I've never seen a healing spell go wrong and I have no idea what it would look like, I just know that if you're trying to heal, you're not going to accidentally blast somebody's head off or something."

"I'm sort of concerned about, like - cancer. If I want to grow an amputated hand back it seems like a related, but in fact harmful, effect, might be some kind of cancer."

"...I'm not sure," says Brilliance. "I don't really know how you biological people are put together."

"Badly," says Bella dryly. "The rest of you was shaped like a dude..." This isn't on her priority list, but Brilliance said he'd stay overnight; she can relax a little.

"Yeah," he says. "I have three forms; that's the one with the highest power output. But it's just shaped like a dude, it doesn't really work like one."

"How come we were able to beat it up if it's higher-power, was I just contributing that much mana or something?"

"The control program wasn't really meant to run all my functions by itself," he says. "Without me in there it was kind of stupid. I think it was having a hard time deciding between killing us first and blowing up the planet first, so it couldn't really manage either one."

"It was smart enough to possess my twin," mutters Bella.

"All that took was getting her to say the activation password. And I bet it wasn't even all that good at that."

"It did sound like she was arguing with it for a while until it told her it was a limited-time offer." Pause. "Can you possess people when you're all together, like it did Lexi?"

"...It's not really possessing," he says. "But yeah, I guess I see why you'd call it that. Sure I can. Nobody who's not my wielder, though, which means - just you."

"Uh, so is there a phrase I should learn to avoid ever, ever saying?"

"...No? Well, yes, but that's a separate issue, and anyway incantations don't work if you don't mean them, and you said you wouldn't torture me."

"...I'm not going to torture you," agrees Bella. "I don't know what that has to do with my question. And I don't think Lexi meant to get possessed, so obviously the meaning-it thing is a little flexible."

"I appreciate that. What does the other kind of unison do? Kinds? When might I want it?"

"Unison has the highest possible power output," says Brilliance. "There's pretty much two kinds. One way is like you saw, and the other way it's the wielder whose face is showing and the device is just... backgrounded. If you wanted to do really big magic - especially if you wanted to fight against somebody who was actually hitting back - unison would be a good idea."

"Noted. Not that I should be predicating any plans on you sticking around, I think you've made it pretty clear you're not looking for a permanent arrangement and I only got spoken to at all because the world was going to end. Is there going to have to be some kind of complicated wielderhood-dissolution incantation to get you disentangled or is is that optional?"

"...I don't know," he says uncomfortably.

"Are you hooked up to Lexi at all still since she was unisoned with the control program part?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"That went away when I ripped out the control program."

"Fair enough. Is it going to be a problem that you don't know how to unwielderify me? Like, it would suck if that turns out to be fatal, or something, I would really rather live forever. Speaking of which if you happen to have tips on designing a spell for that I would be much obliged."

"Uh," he says. "I don't think being my wielder would be fatal. Why the hell would that be fatal?"

"I mean ceasing to be your wielder, since if I understand right you don't exactly have any way to know either way given how your last relationship in that category ended," Bella says. "If we try to hack together something to detach you from me so you can go off doing whatever, the detachment sounds like it might in theory not be great for my health, although I am pretty much just making paranoid guesses - actually, I'm not clear on what me being your wielder does besides give me some ethically dubious access privileges and a Barrier Jacket?"

"...Access privileges in both directions is pretty much it," he says. "And the Barrier Jacket. And the stuff we can do with those access privileges, like unison."

"I would really like to know what access privileges those are, especially anything you can do to me and anything I could conceivably do to you by accident."

"I can engage unison, put your Barrier Jacket on, put your Barrier Jacket away, and if I'm in staff form or unison I can draw on your mana to cast spells," he says. "I don't think there's anything you could do to me by accident. You could torture me but you'd have to be trying."

"Trying as in really, sincerely trying trying or do I need to be very careful about managing fits of pique?"

"I don't know," he says, "do your fits of pique usually involve wanting people to suffer? I mean really wanting it, wanting it the way you have to want to fly in order to fly, specifically."

"Fleeting moments of it. Nothing deliberate, nothing I ever let go anywhere, but going anywhere usually means, you know, moving, speaking, not just wanting a certain amount. I think you're safe if it's like wanting to fly. I'll be careful."

"There's an incantation too," he says. "But I don't really wanna tell you what it is."

"Not something I'm likely to say in casual conversation and spook you into wrecking the planet?"

"I don't spook that easy," he says. "And it's not a hugely common word or anything, it's not, like, 'pants'."

Bella giggles. "Okay."

Brilliance laughs, too.

"It would be weird if it were pants. Although for that matter, why would any of your original spells be incanted in English? You've only been here like a hundred years, you said."

"They're not," he says. "But I pick up languages by magic, and part of getting a language is knowing what all my incantations translate to."

"Whoa, can I learn to do the languages thing too or is that strictly a Device thing?"

"No idea."

"Well, can you tell me about how you do it?"

"...Magic? It's not a spell I cast or anything, it's just part of being me."

"Cool," says Bella enviously. "What other perks do you get?"

"...I dunno," he says. "I don't exactly keep a list of things I can do that might make humans jealous."

"Stop me if this is a personal question, but you have all these magic-based senses - what does it feel like to be all the three shapes you can be? I just can't even imagine it but maybe you can describe it since there's three of them? If they're different to you, maybe they're not."

"It's different," he says. "I get a lot of extra information when I'm, uh, dude-shaped. Staff form is kind of halfway in between - I get the finer details on my magical senses, but not the complex tactile stuff."

"You seem to prefer the deck of cards for just sitting around in," Bella observes.

"Deck of cards is easier to fit places, easier to hide as, and it doesn't get uncomfortable," he says. "And I can't directly use most of my big destructive spells like this, so for a while there I stayed this way as much as I possibly could, just to keep that extra step in there."

"Solid plan, I approve," says Bella. She peers at her question list; it's dwindling and he said he'd stay overnight. "...Hey, um, is there any lingering damage from most of you getting blasted like twelve times? You sound fine, but you're being all deck-of-cards shaped, so I don't really know how to tell. I don't even know if I'd be able to tell if you were being dude-shaped, maybe you don't have automatic body language or anything."

"Nope, I'm fine," he says cheerfully. "I mean, it hurt, but magical damage is good like that, it can hurt and knock you out and you'll be fine in ten minutes."

"I... guess that's convenient? I'm sorry it hurt."

"It's fine," he says cheerfully, "I've had way worse."

"...Ah. Yeah."

"And, you know... thanks."

"You're welcome," Bella says.

He shifts a little on the table.

"Does that mean anything when you slide around like that? Or - wiggle or whatever?" Bella asks.

"...maybe. I dunno. It doesn't mean a specific same thing every time."

"Should I be interpreting that last little shift as anything?"

"I'm - kinda nervous," he admits.

"What about?"

"I just - I get lonely, and I don't want to be, but I'm afraid of people, and I don't think I want to go but I'm afraid to stay, and really I'm kind of a mess," he says.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Bella volunteers after a silence.

"Well, that's good," he says. "I even believe you. I'm just not sure I believe that I believe you."

"...I'm not sure if that makes any sense," says Bella.

"I don't think you're going to hurt me," he attempts to explain, "not on purpose anyway, but the way I feel when I think about sticking around is still the way I'd feel if I wasn't sure."

"Hmm." Bella leans back in her chair. "I'm pretty good at picking apart my own feelings but I don't know if I'd be any help with yours."

"...Dunno what I think of that," says Brilliance.

She shrugs. "It's nothing spooky, I just write about what I'm thinking in a notebook and then it's all laid out to look at, not so slippery. If you want to turn into something that can write and borrow a notebook you can do that, but I don't think it usually accomplishes anything for people who aren't me for some reason."

"Yeah, doesn't sound like my game," says Brilliance. "I don't know... if I did stick around, I mean for a while, if I wanted to be - partners, what would that be like?"

"I'd ask you lots of questions about magic," Bella says. "And do experiments to fill in what you didn't know. And try to figure out the most efficient way to be constructive with it. And probably eventually I'd look for other magic people and ask them questions, and I'd try to find a Device who'd partner up with Lexi so she could help more effectively, and maybe look for other magic people who'd be on board with the general program. Also I'd try to become immortal."

"That... doesn't sound so bad," says Brilliance cautiously.

"I'd hope not," says Bella.

He snorts.

"But then again I don't know what your other options look like. Maybe you don't want to be busy, or you'd get sick of doing science to magic after a few days, or you do like to be busy to the point where you'd be annoyed by downtime caused by me having to sleep and attend school and stuff."

"I don't really know how I feel about being busy," he says. "I think I'd be fine as long as I could take a break whenever I wanted."

"I'd take it amiss if I were all out of my own mana and a mile in the air and you took a break right then," Bella says.

"I'm not gonna drop you," he giggles. "I'd at least get you home first."

"So for reasonable values of 'whenever', yeah, of course."

"Okay," says Brilliance.

"Cool. I guess I don't have to fake sick tomorrow," says Bella. "Where do you want me to stash you overnight? It'd be weird if it was in our room."

"Would it?" he says. "I dunno."

"Well," she says, "you can see, right? We're going to change into our pajamas at some point."

"Oh," he says. "Okay, now that you mention that, it's kind of weird."

"Exactly. So I could put you on the bookshelf in the living room maybe, I don't think Charlie will notice you?"

"Okay, sure," he says.

Bella scoops him up, then pauses. "Would you rather fly there yourself? I don't know how you feel about being picked up in general."