Theo looks over at him, then turns towards Sadde. "What's next?"

"Next we figure out what's going on with your twin," he says, turning to look at Tyler.

"… What about me?" asks Tyler warily.

"Oh, good, he speaks."

"… He does, yes?"

"Then you can maybe tell me what's up?"

He shrugs.

"Tyler," he sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I know technically I'm dating him and not you, but... Man, come on, we've had this conversation."

"I," says Tyler, "don't know." He sighs. "I am slightly tired, I don't really exist, I am sixteen."

"...don't really exist? Under what ridiculously twisted concept of existence, personhood, and continuity are you operating that would cause this to be 'not existing'?"

"Don't really exist in paperwork. In the government system. That sort of thing."

"That's—okay, admittedly a problem, but not in principle insoluble. Erm. Even if I don't know how to solve it. But come on you didn't spend the whole afternoon looking like someone stole your candy over bureaucracy."

"I'm also not particularly magical. And Kero's pretty shit as 'help for sorcery' goes, offence intended if he can hear me, so ugh."

Kero... flies away from Theo's bag and goes somewhere else.

"Was that really necessary?"

"No," says Tyler. "But he's frustrating and I'm feeling a little bit frustrated and slightly vindictive, so."

"It's not his fault—whatever. Okay, frustrated, but what is up. And how can I help?"

He shrugs. "I'm probably just being stupidly temporarily moody. I hear it's a thing teenagers suffer from."

"It... is, yes. Erm."

"What?"

"I don't know," he sighs. "Just, I have all these instincts on how to deal when Theo is going through emotional stuff and they don't apply here so I need to figure out... something else."

He shrugs. "I might be better by tomorrow. Assuming I don't, like, disappear in my sleep or something weird – I don't know what the Twin's changed or controls about me or whatever."

"Worst-case scenario we'll just keep bringing you back?"

"Yeah, I know, I just mean– I probably need some time to work through things or just, you know, exist with things being on my mind, and if I disappear I will lose this time and I probably won't be better by tomorrow."

"Yeah," he sighs. "Well, erm. I hope you'll be alright, then. I'm—sorry, I guess, for stuff."

Tyler gives Sadde a look. "I hardly think it's your fault."

"I'm expressing regret not admitting fault."

"… Okay," he says.

He sighs. "Should I... go home? I don't know if you want to talk to William without me around or..."

"I don't think I really want to talk to him at all right now, but that seems unlikely to be a course of action that will work out in the long run."

Theo is apparently just going to stand here quietly.

"Yes, hopefully his memories," he gestures at Theo, "are enough of a case study there."

"Mm," responds Tyler, making a bit of a face. "I will just go talk to William, in that case," he says, walking – not running, despite the the fact that he obviously seems like he wants to bolt – into the kitchen and shutting the door behind him.

"...well. Erm. I guess I should. Go home?"

"I don't know," says Theo. "I'm not really sure what to do with him so I think he might just end up, I don't know, taking care of himself or whatever, he seems like he's not gonna want me to interfere, and– you don't have to go home yet?" He shrugs. "I mean, you can, and it's kinda late, so – I don't know."

"And we both do have school tomorrow," he says, taking a couple steps closer to Theo and wrapping his arms around his waist.

"We do," says Theo, looking at Sadde. Then he sighs and rests his head on Sadde's shoulder.

Sadde does the same. "This magic business is very annoying."

"I mean, it's wonderful and everything," he mumbles. "It's magic, yay, but ugh."

"The only yay I have left for magic now is actually for 'how to figure out a non-terrible way to do it.'"

"Yeah, basically the same for me," says Theo. "But, you know, hopefully possible."

"Someone did at some point, so we should be able to."

"You mean, learn to do sorcery? Yeah." Nuzzle. "I should probably look into the weird speed thing I have, too."

"I haven't gotten a lot of mileage out of exploring my shapeshifting." He starts nibbling on Theo's neck a bit absently.

Theo will just continue leaning against Sadde's shoulder, his neck available for nibbling.

After a minute, Tyler will leave the kitchen and walk past them, aiming for the stairs.

...Sadde won't stop him. "I'm gonna go, then," he tells Theo.

"Mm," says Theo, still not detaching.

...yeah Sadde doesn't want to detach either.

Then they can continue to stay attached, in that case.

Until William comes out of the kitchen. He will conspicuously cough to announce his presence if necessary.

Sadde will detach, then, and smile sheepishly at William. "Yep, I should go home, erm, good night?"

"Night," says Theo, allowing Sadde to detach.

Hm. "Bye, Sadde," says William, waving slightly.

Sadde will plant a small peck on his boyfriend's lips and then go off.

Theo will smile a bit at that and then turn to face his dad when Sadde's gone.

Who will sigh a bit and then discuss some things with Theo and then suggest that Theo get some sleep since he has school tomorrow.

And so Theo shall go upstairs and get ready for bed.

Seems Tyler took the guest room.

The following day, Willow will be at Theo's school! Because she goes there!

She will be! And they'll have morning registration, then two hours of lessons, then a twenty-minute assembly on the importance of looking out for one another and a reference to the teachings of Jesus (because it's a Church of England school, such fun) and then they'll have morning break!

Theo does not approach her during this twenty-minute interval.

But she does approach him: "Hi!"

"Hey," he says. "You holding up okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Mum's dealing with finding a way to get Maya and Juniper legal identities, and she said I should offer Tyler one, too."

"That'd be nice – I'm sure he'd appreciate it," says Theo. "He seems a bit down on things."

"Yeah, he was pretty quiet yesterday, I didn't know if that was his change or what. Is he okay?"

"I dunno." He shrugs. "I think he's okay – he doesn't seem really bad or anything – but I haven't actually spoken to him much."

"Why not?"

"He disappeared into the guest room pretty quickly after we got back so I assumed he didn't want to be disturbed, and then this morning I had to get ready for school and he wasn't about so," he shrugs. "I'll probably talk to him tonight, though."

"Alright, I guess. Juniper and I talked a lot, except not really because we shared memories until yesterday morning so there wasn't a whole lot to talk about except me asking her about stuff and how she was different from me and we tried to do magic but it didn't really work also we were talking to Maya she's nice."

"Yeah, she seemed interesting."

Talking of Maya, Jess is also present at school, seeing as she goes here!

She isn't, however, making any moves in their direction.

"Mmhm! Then we had to go to bed but Juniper said she'd try to come up with a list of things to try, like maybe enchantments and spells and incantations, and she'd google stuff, maybe in Latin."

Theo nods. "Yeah, we– we haven't really got 'round to any of that stuff."

"Why not? How long have you had this magic thing going on anyway? "

"Known about it at all – it's been like a month and a bit? And I don't really know why not. I assumed sorcery or whatever would be… different from fictional stuff."

"What do you mean?"

"Fictional magic stuff is typically, like, the rituals and the chants thing – you said Juniper was looking that sort of stuff up – and I just didn't really think that magic would be like that, for some reason."

"Well if magic really exists then maybe it influenced fiction. It's really insistent about magic using Latin, so that's a place to look. Would Kero recognise a ritual or spell if someone cast one?"

"I have no idea!" says Theo. "He might, because he has some sort of magic thing, but," he shrugs.

"Some sort of magic thing?"

"The ability to know when a card is active, not as well as I can when I meditate? It might apply to sorcery too." He shrugs, again.

"Ooh yeah that sounds like it could work!"

He nods. "Yeah, I think so. I would ask him but I'm not sure he's even with me today."

No flying bear shows up to prove him wrong.

And then one of Theo's friends walks Theo-wards, so Theo suggests to Willow that they table this conversation for a bit later or something.

She shrugs and goes back to her group of friends to blab at them.

After a few more minutes, break is over and they have another hour of whatever lesson and then it's lunch!

Willow doesn't go talk to him then.

Then lunch will proceed, lunch will be over, and they'll have two more hours of lessons and then it'll be the end of the day.

And then Willow walks up to him!

"Hey there," he says.

"Hi! What now?"

"… I don't know, probably back to my place or something – uh, I should text Sadde?"

And Tyler. He should text Sadde and Tyler. So he texts Sadde and then… he'll see if he can text himself, after he gets a response from Sadde.

Sure, your place it is.

"My place, apparently," says Theo. Then he texts Tyler – by texting his own phone, hopefully that'll work – to let him know that they'll be there shortly.

Willow calls home and informs Juniper and Maya of this.

Then she calls her driver.

Then a limo appears.

"What's your address?" she asks Theo.

Driver! Of course.

He tells her his address.

The driver nods and starts driving.

The inside of the limousine is the inside of a limousine. It is big and has lots of space and also soft drinks. Willow pours herself some.

Theo… does not! He's fine just sitting in the limousine.

Ha. Limousine.

Yup! Limousine! And then they arrive at Willow's place.

Juniper gets in the car.

Theo says hi!

Maya also gets in the car!

"Did you text your sister?" Juniper asks Maya.

"Yep," she says. "She should be ready when we get there."

"Does she want a ride?"

"Oh, no, as in – she'll be walking to Theo's now."

"I know."

"We're offering a ride anyway. And we don't have Sadde's number, can you text him and offer him a ride?" she asks Theo.

"Uh, right," she says and gets out her phone to text Jess to be ready to get into the limo when it pulls up by her, which it presumably will, at some point, and they are in fact not evil kidnappers or something.

"Sure," says Theo, and he does so.

One text arrives: Oh no it would be a terrible idea to get a ride on a limousine no thanks.

Then another a few seconds later: That was sarcasm, by the way.

"Apparently yes," he says.

"Do you know his address?"

"Yeah, uh, just a sec," he says, then retrieves it on his phone and offers it.

The driver reads it. Jess' place is closer, so they go there first.

Jess is standing outside her house when they get there! She walks over to the limo, a bit hesitantly.

(A limo. Really?)

Yes, really! People are waiting for her inside!

She gets in, in that case!

"Hey," says Maya.

And the next stop is Sadde's place! She whistles, impressed. "Nice ride."

"Thanks!"

"It's rather… fancy," says Maya.

"Yeah, it's nice." The driver starts taking them to Theo's. "So, let's talk magic? Or do we wait until we get to your place with your twin?"

"I think we can start," says Theo. "I think he'll probably catch up pretty quickly, and it should be okay to summarise?"

"Okay! So, let's start."

"… I still have no idea how the actual non-card magic stuff works," he says.

"Well, what have you tried?"

"Not much, really."

She raises a very unimpressed eyebrow.

Theo shrugs.

"My first contact with magic was lame shapeshifting which didn't look like sorcery or anything like that at all, and then Kero was completely unhelpful, and then we were running around chasing cards! It was going to happen eventually!"

"Uh huh."

"I bet Tyler would have suggested it eventually, anyway."

"It doesn't really matter, though," says Jess, "because now it's been suggested and so you guys can get to work on trying things."

"Yup, and we'll do all the magic!"

"I wonder if there's a way to transfer magic to someone. I mean, the system's versatile enough to have manufactured the cards and Kero..."

Jess shrugs.

Maya says, "Hopefully it won't actually matter that much, since if we need something magicked we can hopefully just decide on it beforehand and get it done? But yeah, it'd be nice if they could be magic too."

Juniper eyes her twin...

...who seems to be doing great! "Yep! Worst-case I'll mooch off my new relative," she says, nudging Juniper.

Jess smiles at them both.

Theo seems to have nothing to input on this!

"Okay, well, we tried Latin today and it didn't really work out, so it's not super obvious like that."

"What sorts of phrases did you try?"

"Not a lot," she admits. "We just tried words and stuff that sounded magical enough."

He nods. "Phrases and things might work, like, stereotypical magic rituals that are like 'wind, do my bidding and whatever' or… whatever?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Well, Theo's phrase to release the staff is in English? And last time Kero said it didn't even need to be the whole sentence?"

Theo shrugs. "Yeah, I dunno."

"Try saying that again, this time with feeling?"

"Huh?"

"That thing you just said, 'wind do my bidding' or something."

"Wind, do my bidding," he tries.

He doesn't seem to think it's very likely it'll work.

...bit of a breeze?

"Okay did we imagine that do it again and mean it."

So he tries it again, and this time he actually seems to mean it some more!

"Wind, do my bidding," he says. He doesn't say it particularly forcefully, though, because he doesn't know how strongly it'll act, and maybe it depends on how forcefully he says it.

Yes. Definitely a bit of a breeze. "Okay, if it was that easy all along I am going to kick myself so hard. Wind, do my bidding!" More breeze.

"Wind, do my bidding!" Juniper tries, and yep, moving air alright.

"Wind, do my bidding!"

...nope.

"Aww."

Jess tries it too, and fails, predictably.

Maya does likewise and gets a bit of movement.

"Okay why didn't we try this before. Theo why didn't we try this before."

"I don't know?" he says. "… I hope Kero doesn't have some sort of 'curiosity suppression field'. That'd be annoying."

"It would be very annoying but I'm pretty sure I'd've noticed it."

"And if you didn't try anything at all you shouldn't beat yourself up for not having tried this specific thing."

And presently they have arrived.

So people get out and Theo opens the door to his house.

Tyler appears at the top of the stairs. "Hi," he says.

"Hello! We can do magic! Look! Wind, do my bidding!"

Breeze.

"You did it?" Kero asks, flying down. "How?"

"Apparently by bothering to try anything."

"Not anything, Latin didn't work," Juniper points out.

"Okay, yeah, but you didn't try phrases like that, right?"

"'Like that'?"

"A phrase in Latin that means 'wind, do my bidding', since that's the only thing we have confirmed to work so far – I think you said you just did words?"

"Yeah pretty much. Do you know any Latin?"

"Is there even a point to that, if it works in English?"

"Well no, since we could just say it in English, but if it ends up weaker, we have information that either Latin or foreign languages in general are weaker, and if it ends up stronger, it might be useful."

So she grabs her phone and looks up how to say that in Latin and then says it.

Doesn't work. "Oh, well."

"What about French? I don't know how to say 'do my bidding', but 'do what I want' might work – le vent, fais ce que je veux!"

Bit less of a breeze.

"… Maybe it only works in languages that you know?" He frowns, then tries, "Wind, machen was ich will!"

Yep, breeze about as good as when it was English.

"Annnd I have no idea what it is for Spanish."

"Don't look at me, I'm terrible at languages."

"Okay, that's all very fun and good, but then what's the pattern? What does this have to do with the cards, how do we generalise from that?"

"Languages that you know, presumably, this thing at least? So we might as well just do stuff in English, at least for now."

"Okay. What other kinds of things can we do that are not destructive? Hmm... Earth, I call upon you, give me a rose!" And a rose appears in her hand.

Willow: is totally not jealous at all. Nope. She's fine here, not having any magical girl powers.

Jess can join her in being fine, then.

Except Jess is actually mostly fine, so.

"… I'm kinda curious how far this can go, because I wouldn't have expected it to be as easy as this to do these sorts of things, I mean, I thought cards were needed for– most stronger things?"

She looks around. "Is there a place where we can, like, experiment with magic without destroying anything?"

"… Back garden? Or we could go back to that park-field thing."

"D'you fancy yelling at the top of your lungs and calling the elements in public like that? And then succeeding at it?"

"I mean, it's not like there were many people there last time we went? We were messing with the Change, I think you tested out the Fly?"

"Sure but none of those things call particular attention if no one's looking, whereas the yelling would."

He shrugs. "Other than spending a day to go find a random field somewhere and doing it there, I don't think so, then?"

"We cooould go to the rather large estate owned by the eccentric and very rich people."

… Good point.

"Yes, yes we could," says Tyler, walking past Theo and patting him on the shoulder. "Now a good time? Great."

"Perhaps should've thought about this before we all decided to meet up here. Not like it matters much, but still."

So they all get into the limo again—it's large enough to contain everyone—and off they go.

Off they go indeed.

And eventually they arrive! Willow leads them to a very spacious room with no furniture to speak of except for a couple of rolled up martial arts mats.

"Our sister Rowan fences," Juniper explains.

"Of course she does," says Theo. "… What are we trying first, any ideas?"

"Well, we all know about the elements part? ...maybe I could try to do something like what the Change can do, without using the card itself."

"That's probably a good idea, since you have the, uh, Change thing anyway."

"Okay, let's see... I'm not actually sure what to change to what. This is surprisingly open-ended, we should, like, make a list of things to try? Maybe start out with a list of cards and see what from it we could safely look at? She made a flower."

"Yeah," he says, looking around to see if anyone perhaps wants to make a list.

Maya! Maya has paper, somehow, and pens – perhaps she got them from Jess at some point, or asked Willow or Juniper for them – and she's very willing to make a list!

She starts listing all fifty-two cards, fails to remember them all, and asks Kero to continue—

—which he has no problem doing.

Maya writes them all down, leaving space to write notes about each one.

"The most interesting one to me in that list is Fly, if I could fly without the card..."

Theo sighs. "Kero said it'd take a while for me to do it without the wings being visible, I think, but I don't know if that applies to the other magic."

"Should I call wind? Wind, make me weightless and lift me up, give me the ability to fly!" she proclaims, and this causes her to lift about ten centimetres above the floor. "...okay, not as good as the card, is this a general thing, how did Clow even create the cards if we're limited like this?" She hovers forward a bit.

"I have no idea," says Theo. "Yyyyou could try calling Fly instead, in case that's– like, a thing? I don't know if it is or not. Or maybe both of them, perhaps they can combine or something."

Maya writes down the phrasing and the result.

Woo, careful notetaking.

"...I'm not sure how to stop, maybe just—" She lands. "Okay, yeah, just wanting to stop does it. Fly, carry me in your wings, grant me the power of flight!" Nope. "Hmm."

Also noted!

"… Possibly try calling on, like, air and earth or something, some combination of the typical elements – probably not fire, because, uh," he looks around a bit pointedly. "Even though the idea of hot air might help with the floating."

"Why would earth help?"

What, really, no 'why on earth'? "I have no idea, I was mainly just meaning to give it extra strength instead of being thematically appropriate, but perhaps the things can do the opposite of their themes too, and since Earth is about the ground, and you want to fly, perhaps it'd be able to get rid of the annoying thing, like reduce gravity on you or something."

Shrug.

"Wind, I call upon thee to lend me aid—"

"Thee?"

She ignores her. "Earth, I beseech thee to release me! Grant me lift, give me motion, let me take to the skies and soar! Let me fly!" Yup, that's better, she's flying now. "Whoop!" She tries twirling in the air and succeeds.

Willow giggles uncontrollably. "This is the best magic."

"… Not a stupid idea, cool."

"So, maybe if we weren't inside and worried about fire, you could get that involved too? Could result in more freedom of movement or greater speed or something. Also the 'thee' thing might be affecting stuff, so maybe we should try it without that and see if modern English works differently."

"Is anyone writing this down? It probably doesn't depend on exact phrasing, I'm just making stuff up as I go along." She zips this way and that as she talks.

"I am," says Maya, pen in hand.

"Okay, I'm gonna try—" and she suddenly loses the ability to flight and goes tumbling onto the (thankfully cushioned) floor.

"You alright?" asks Theo, moving over to her.

"Nnnghh yeees? Floor's soft, didn't really get hurt. That was weird."

"… What did you try?"

"I didn't try anything! I just—fell."

"So there's a time limit or something?"

"Oh, I thought you– hm," he says. "Wind, Earth, I call upon you for flight."

He is: flying!

...well, hovering, really. Not noticeably different than Sadde with the very first version of the spell.

"… And apparently I am hovering, not flying. – Which thing was Windy under again, moon or Sun?"

"Moon, pretty sure."

"… Okay, so unless the affinity things are reversed here, that seems like it should be the opposite of how it is, since I'm moon and I'm pretty sure Kero said affinities were like-for-like?"

"Your phrase was shorter than hers. If this system relies on you being all theatrical..."

"… I'm not really sure what else to say. I don't know if I can be– adequately theatrical, shall I say."

Maya does not laugh at that.

She might smile like she wants to, though.

"This is definitive proof that there is not a god, or, if there is, it has an extremely peculiar sense of humour. Granting magical power and control over artefacts of incredible might to someone who won't even use them properly."

"Well, you can just repeat after me," Willow starts, then strikes a pose. "Wind, I, Theo, command thee to lend me aid and grant me lift! Earth, I, Theo, command thee to release your bonds over me! Under the guidance of the Moon, breaking the shackles of the Sun! Give me flight!"

He… does not strike the pose. He does, however, repeat the words, trying to say them with conviction.

Yep, that's flight. Better flight, even, than what Sadde got. Easier to navigate and stuff. Not as good or easy to steer as the Fly card, but definitely not bad at all.

"So it possibly relies on theatrics, in which case it'd probably matter how we say it and not just how we mean it," he says, moving around a bit – ee, flight is fun. "Or maybe it's just more powerful with long chants?"

Maya: notes this down!

Tyler thinks he'll try repeating the phrase to himself, quietly, over in this corner here. He does mean it, in case that matters, but he's intentionally not saying it very loudly.

Tyler: flies!

"If it's just long chants does content actually matter much? If I say, for instance, Wind, grant me flight, grant me flight, grant me flight, o Wind, grant me flight, make me fly, grant me flight, grant me flight..." She repeats this a few more times until she's been speaking for longer altogether than Theo did.

And she starts hovering a few inches above the floor. 

"Yeah, chant length is not enough."

"Should probably test that with just one iteration to see if it's at all stronger or if it's identical."

Ee, flight. Hopefully it doesn't stop too abruptly for him, but he will make sure to get over the nice padded area so he doesn't get hurt when it probably does stop.

Tyler: does a small bit of flying around, because it seems fun.

Jess kinda wants to try that.

"Do you think it'd work to have it grant someone else flight, such as someone non-magical? – I mean, maybe you should try it."

"Wind, I, Sadde, command thee to lend Jess aid and grant her lift! Earth, I, Sadde, command thee to release your bonds over her! Under the guidance of the Moon, breaking the shackles of the Sun! Give her flight!"

She lifts!

...she can't fly with it, however. She's immobile in the air.

"Mmmnope, seems I'm just hovering and not able to move."

She moves a bit now.

"Yeah, apparently it's under my control for some reason."

"Probably because you're the one doing the magic, so maybe you could put me down now?"

She does.

She lands, too. "Okay, let me try only one iteration now, wind, grant me flight!" Few inches. "So the long repeated thing was as good as the short one."

"Seems so," says Maya, continuing to note down the results.

Wheee.

Wheeeflomp.

Less wheee, muffled by a mat. He gets up and says, "Maybe we should time it, in case it varies between people or phrasings."

Now Tyler flomps.

"You definitely stayed up longer than I did, though. I wonder if there's a non-card way to make it permanent. I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, here."

Yay.

Luckily he was still mostly upright so he can catch himself when he falls.

"Yeah," he says. "It's… I feel stupid, really, that we didn't do this before?"

"I don't," she shrugs. "Of all the possible ways magic could've turned out to work, 'say what you mean out loud while invoking arbitrary bronze age concepts' is a pretty specific one, and we had only very slight evidence that it would work at all. I suggested it entirely on a fit of whimsy."

"It's actually pretty suspicious that you got it right on the first try."

"Maybe she has, like, magic senses?"

Theo shrugs.

"Well, we've verified Latin doesn't work, so it's not 'literally whatever we say with the right attitude,' and the content does seem to matter. What else's salient about card magic?"

"There's the symbols and stuff, on the back of the cards, which also appear in a glowy floaty way whenever he uses one of them." She grabs the Fly from a pocket and shows its back.

"Perrrhaps we should see what the– Chinese? Or Japanese? I think those are the cardinal directions, not sure if I ever actually checked – symbols are for wind and earth, maybe, and see if drawing something like that and saying the thing works better?"

"Drawing it where? On us?"

"When Clow did rituals sometimes there were things written in papers," Kero supplies helpfully.

"...why didn't you mention it before."

"It never came up."

"Lots of things never come up," says Theo. "And now, shall we try doing some things written on paper or whatever, probably a good idea?"

"Yeah, sure, sounds good." She looks at Jess (or was it Maya?) and asks, "What've you got so far? We should maybe be a bit more systematic about this."

It was Maya, but Sadde would be forgiven for not remembering. "I've just noted down the things that you've said and what sorts of results you got – like, longer phrases work better, repetition doesn't work, targeting non-magical people seems to give you control over how it affects them but that might just be targeting people who aren't you, calling two elements maybe works better than one, speaking in a language that isn't your own only really works if you know it?"

"Okay, we should time how long we can stay in the air with each spell and see how much each piece of the spell adds to the whole, as well as whether it changes from person to person. We should try Theo's idea, too. Symbols, words, diagrams..."

Theo nods. "We should maybe see if the added power from the two elements was actually because of the two elements or just because of the longer phrase? Sort of part of the 'see how much each piece adds'."

"I'm gonna get some paper and a few timers and a couple of laptops, do we need anything else...?"

"I can't think of anything?" says Theo.

"It might matter what we write the symbols in, if they work at all? I don't know what variety of writing utensils you have."

"Pens, pencils, brushes...?"

"Different coloured pens?" She shrugs. "I'm not sure what else."

"Get different kinds of paper? Maybe something other than paper?"

"Like what?"

"If you have something like clay – I'm assuming not but I have no idea what you have – we could make marks in it, or we could draw with chalk on something…?"

"We have black boards and white boards and chalk and markers, but probably no clay." She turns to look at a door and suddenly yells, "MANFRED!"

Maya jumps a bit.

"… Is Manfred your– butler or whatever?"

Going by the appearance of the old man in a suit after she calls and the fact that he listens to Willow's requests and goes off, probably to fetch said things, yes.

Theo will wait patiently! He's apparently good at that. Or maybe he's just good at pretending to wait patiently, or he's good at coping with boredom, or– something.

Who knows.

And presently Manfred is back with all the requested objects, including some clay.

"Thank you, Manfred," says Maya.

"Thanks," says Theo, likewise. "So, do we have any particular symbols in mind, or are we just going to try writing words, or…?"

Three of the things Manfred brought are laptops!

"These connect to the wifi automatically, we should look stuff up."

That's useful! "Yeah, we should. Maybe we could do diagrams with this, too? Depending on how the symbols have to be drawn, if they do anything, it might work to just display them electronically."

Maya moves to get using one and look some stuff up.

"First thing: measure the time taken by a single spell when spoken by different people? If it's always the same or always the same ratio we'll know how to multitask more effectively."

"I like you."

"Maybe we should see if how long it takes to say the spell affects the power – I mean, currently we've tested things with the same words, but if you rush it through or if you drag it out, does it affect the power of the spell? I'd guess not, because of the repetition thing, but should probably test it just in case."

"Okay, yeah, good idea. Let's pick someone as guinea pig, here. Theo?"

"Sure," he says. "What phrase should I use?"

"The last one you used? It's long enough to be a good baseline for everything, I think."

He nods, then looks over at Maya's notes to find what it was and says it again at a regular speed.

Maya starts a timer when he starts saying it, makes a note of the time when he finishes, makes a note of the time he starts flying if that's separated by much, and then waits until it runs out.

It lasts a few minutes!

Maya notes down the time it takes.

Theo says it again, more quickly this time!

It lasts the exact same amount of time!

Maya notes and mentions this.

"Okay, I was going to suggest we retry the normal-speed one to see if it's consistent about how long that takes and not just random variation, but if it's taking exactly the same amount of time anyway, that probably doesn't matter."

"Do it anyway, to be consistent."

So he does!

Same amount of time again.

Maya notes and mentions this.

"Okay, so it's just what is said, not how fast it's said. Tyler tried murmuring it earlier and it seemed to work just fine, Theo you can try that, and I can try just saying it out loud and seeing whether it changes from person to person."

She recites the spell again and is flying.

Theo tries murmuring it too!

Maya times it.

Jess just sort of watches. She's not really able to do anything.

And it turns out that murmuring it is no worse or better than saying it out loud, and Sadde's spell also lasts the same.

"Okay, so it's looking like this is a property of the sentence itself. I wonder if we need to actually say it out loud?" She tries just thinking the sentence really hard... "Doesn't seem to work."

"… I'm curious if sign language works," says Theo. "But since I don't know any, it probably wouldn't work. Um. What about mouthing the words and not actually saying it?"

He tries it!

Nope.

"Apparently not."

"Alright, need to be spoken out loud, different people saying the same thing get the same results—actually I wonder if this is always true, it sounds weird if it's not, but maybe different spells can be different? ...also maybe Theo and my magics are more similar because we've been doing this for about the same time?" She yawns a bit.

Juniper tries the same one Sadde and Theo did unprompted. It lasts the same amount of time.

… Maya tries it too, just in case.

Yep, same.

"Seems like the same spell has the same amount of time for all of us, then, yeah. This one, at least."

Noted.

"Okay let's see if another spell also lasts the same time for all of us and if it does we can probably effectively work in parallel."

"So it's probably more like a limit on the spell itself rather than a mana thing, since we seem to be fine doing the spells over and over right after we drop down? Should possibly keep an eye on that if we do some quick-cast thing, like, a blast attack if that's possible, to make sure it's not a mana thing?" She blinks at what she just said. "Not that I'm recommending we get a blast attack necessarily, nor do I think this is a game, but like, it kinda seems it is."

"Well I think Kero said that when it comes to cards it's just a matter of having more magical capacity to be occupied by cards we're using, not some finite resource or something...?"

"That's correct, but I don't know if sorcery's the same."

"… It would probably make sense for it to be the same, I think? Or else for it to be a limit that had to be put into the cards when they were made, so cards would be on a totally separate system, which I guess is possible." She frowns. "Or it could be a weird combination, yeah, but I wouldn't expect–" Sigh. "You know what, actually, just– yeah, okay, nevermind."

"Magic is insane and opaque and we don't have enough information to guess much," she summarises.

"Yeah."

"But we can hopefully poke at it and get some interesting results and then hopefully it's internally consistent."

Tyler looks at Theo and raises an eyebrow.

"Well, the results seem to be consistent so far."

And she tries the shortest spell phrasing they tried.

"Yeah, fortunately."

Maya times it again.

It does indeed last much less time than the longer verse!

"My turn!" And she does that one verse and it lasts exactly as long as Juniper's. "Okay so yeah, depends exclusively on the spell, and is apparently somewhat dependent on spell length?"

"We should possibly count the syllables or words or sounds or letters or something, see if it's a direct link. Depending on how precise we want to be."

"As precise as possible, I think."

"Okay, well, all of the aforementioned it is. I'll have a quick search to see how many actual sounds there are in the phrases too – I'm not up to date on linguistics stuff."

"Yeah, and there's the pieces of the spell. I'm not sure how to best break it down, though... Maybe we should come up with a spell that's less, er, integrated?"

"What, something simpler like just moving some wind a certain direction, or…?"

"No, like, something to fly but that's made of different bits that could all individually do flight."

"Oh, like, call upon a bunch of the different elements to help with flight, instead of just one or two of them?"

"Something like that, but in pieces which themselves could be independently used as spells. As in, tie a few different spells together, and then try each of them separately and see if the larger one is the same as the four together, or more than that, or less than that."

"Makes sense," she says. "So, like, try calling upon each of the elements to help you fly? Wind and earth haven't had any obvious effects yet, so I doubt water will cause rain or fire will, like, set fire to anything, though I'm not really sure how water helps you fly."

"Does it need to be elements? I think Theo said some of the symbols behind the cards are actually cardinal directions?"

"… Yeah, I think so? Um, keeping in mind that I think those are sometimes associated with elements, not sure."

"Um, right," she says, then looks it up. "Apparently it's usually air in the east, fire in the south, water in the west and earth in the north, but sometimes it's fire in the east, earth in the south, air in the west and water in the north, and then sometimes it varies from that too, so, um. Not sure about that."

"Is it obvious which way it seems to be from the cards? Does Windy have something on her?" she asks Theo.

"Something like what?" he asks, getting Windy out of his bag.

"Like a cardinal direction written on the card somewhere, so we know which one this magical system seems to associate with wind."

"Uh, it has all four of them, in a circle?" he says, showing her. "I don't think it's actually particularly helpful, since, you know, has all four of them. The other side, that one I'm pretty sure is just the symbol for wind."

Maya checks. "Yeah, they're the traditional Chinese and-or Japanese symbols for north, east, south, west and wind."

"We could try a very specific spell, like, something to invoke a breeze, and use East, and see if that works?"

"And then try it again with West, to make sure that actually makes a difference? That should work?"

"Sadde, you wanna do this?"

"Sure! Erm, let's see, something suitably theatrical... How do we even call upon a cardinal direction to do it."

"Wind, come from the East and give me flight?" he tries.

"That seems like it could work for any direction with wind specifically. Maybe we could do something with water instead?"

"True. Uh, I don't know what with water though, like, flow from the East and… water these plants or something, if we go outside? But then it sounds like we might be trying to divert a river or something."