"Whoa, slow down! No, I didn't make them. They can't talk, at least not the ones I've met, but they can understand people, and I found Windy in a museum; Fly sorta found me. Kero came knocking at my window when he was looking for Windy."

"A lot of them can talk," Kero supplies. "And I was looking for all the cards. There are fifty-three, by the way."

"...wow. What else can they do?"

"Apparently there are two called 'Song' and 'Voice' that have better control over sound than Windy does... I think there were also some water and fire ones?"

"Arrow, Big, Bubbles, Change, Cloud, Create, Dark, Dash, Dream..." he starts listing.

And of course he lists them for her, alphabetically, but giving an idea of some of the more powerful and some of the weaker cards for Theo would be too much effort.

"So yeah, you get the idea," he interrupts.

Theo hasn't exactly been the most welcoming of masters, and he doesn't pet anyone.

"So you found two cards, I have one, there are fifty others, do other people have them? Are they all, like, lost somewhere?"

"Theo scattered them all with Windy when he unsealed them, they could be anywhere."

"Yes, Theo did. Accidentally. Apparently the cards will stay inactive for a bit, for different times, so for now they're not doing anything."

"But when they activate again, they'll bring terrible catastrophe to the world!"

"Catastrophe? What kind of catastrophe? How can we stop it?"

Because it's definitely 'we,' now.

Of course it is. Hopefully it'll be for the better.

"The cards apparently cause damage while out in the wild with no instruction, because they just use their powers, not exactly taking care not to harm things, and some of the powers are pretty destructive. I think it's just that with a lot of them, that destruction adds up?"

Kero nods. "And they get more powerful the longer they're active for. If Windy went wild for a year, there would be daily hurricanes all over the world."

Windy does not challenge this assertion.

"They can be stopped, though, if you capture them, and used in a controlled manner if they accept you as their master," he adds, saying the last part a bit pointedly.

"That's bad! How do you do that?"

"With your magic levels, you need a special artefact to capture them. They'll accept you as their master if you prove yourself to them, develop a good relationship with them, make them trust you. Signing your name on the card also helps."

"... I'm sorry, what was that last one?" Theo asks, a little bit sweetly.

"If you sign your name on the card, you bind it to your identity, and it's harder for it to do something against you."

Sadde nods. "That makes sense. I think Change likes me."

"Oh, of course it is. Of course it does. Anything else you might think to mention, that you've perhaps forgotten to tell me?" He grabs out a pen and writes his name at the top of Fly's card.

"Well, if I could remember what I had forgotten I wouldn't have forgotten it," Kero says reasonably.

She peers at the card. "So what does that one do?"

"It's a huge bird that just sits in the middle of a field, not listening to me, apparently. And it also makes my staff sprout wings."