"The books in the library were a little like that, but I didn't know how much like that it really was there... that is not fair," she says. "Boys should be able to go to school and do things if they want."
"I don't know if I should care about Draconic's opinion," says Matilda. "Draconic has weird opinions."
She casts the time spell.
"I should go home now. Bye, Jensal. It was nice to meet you. I'm glad I could help the babies and everybody."
And is unusually pensive when she shows up to her next witchcraft lesson.
"Well, I wish someone had told me about shrens much earlier," she says. "And I think it's not fair that boys don't get to school in Linnip. Everyone should get to go to school. School is wonderful."
"They're sort of like dragons except there's something wrong with their magic so they can't fly properly until they can shift, and they can't shift until they're twenty years old, and not flying hurts them," she says. "It was very bad. But then I fixed all the babies. I'm going to go back later for the rest of the grown-ups."
"No, I don't think so. And I learned a new thing about ialdae," she adds. "When dragons or shrens catch ialdae, they catch it a lot. More than any human except me."
"Yeah! I'm not sure why. I think it might be something about dragon magic. Dragon magic is weird. But ialdae is a stuff, there are amounts of it, and different people with it make different amounts, and Annei and Sarsia and Lavender make smallish amounts and I make tons and tons and dragons are somewhere in between. Why can't boys in Linnip go to school?"