"Because when Sherry doesn't wanna meet anybody in the Enchanted Forest, she doesn't."

"Really! Now how do you manage that?" inquires Bella, who will now be narrated with her name despite the fact that her traveling companions don't know it.

"I go where they are not."

"That seems logical, but how do you know where they won't be?"

"It is obvious."

"...Is this an obscure royal magic sense, or...?"

"Near as anybody can tell, nope," says Tony. "She's just really good at noticing things. Not that the royal magic doesn't help."

"Huh. You'd have to be extraordinarily good at noticing things to avoid running into anyone in a week's walk through the forest. And that's if the forest didn't decide to throw anybody at you a bit more forcefully than usual. If you were feeling so antisocial how come you came up to my house?"

"Your house," says Sherlock, "was interesting. And there was that squirrel."

"What exactly did you ask the squirrel for directions to?"

"Someone interesting."

Bella giggles. "I try to be that, yes."

"You succeed."

Bella is inestimably pleased by this compliment. "Cricket said you thought I was a witch."

"Not for very long."

"What gave me away?"

"Everything."

Bella laughs. "Most people can go on thinking I'm a witch for a long time. Sorceress stuff isn't widely recognized, I have to adapt anything from fire-witches or elves or unicorns till it's unrecognizable, nobody expects a girl to use wizard magic in any form, and everybody uses a dragon spell or two. A witch could do most everything that's left over, and I do dress like one."

"And yet," she says, "you are not a witch."

"D'you know what I am?" Bella asks, grinning.

"You are yourself."

Bella giggles. "Of course I am. But there's a technical term for a student of all kinds of magic. I'm a magician."

"There you are, then."

"What else can you tell about me, Princess Observant?" inquires Bella brightly.

"You're very cute."