so there was this deck of cards, right

[lexicality]

Jessica's house is cute. Lexi could see doing a lot of her homework here, listening to the calming chatter of gossip and getting help from Jessica on math (Bella's no help there) and helping Jessica on English. Forks isn't so bad. She doesn't mind the rain as much as Bella does.

Jessica goes to pee before they even start their assignment, after just introducing Lexi to her mom and dad as "one of Chief Swan's kids", and Lexi doesn't want to do work by herself or she wouldn't have come over in the first place. She sits on the couch and plunks her bag down and waits. There's a random deck of cards over there; she picks it up and flips through it. She's been trying to learn to bridge-shuffle.

Comments

[cardistry]

"Want one," he suggests.

[incanted]

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

[cardistry]

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

[incanted]

"...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."

[cardistry]

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

[incanted]

"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?"

[cardistry]

"Try that!" he says encouragingly.

[incanted]

"...Invisible Search," she attempts.

[cardistry]

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.

[incanted]

"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."

[cardistry]

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

[incanted]

"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.

[cardistry]

This does not work.

[incanted]

"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?"

[cardistry]

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

[incanted]

"Flight," says Bella insistently.

[cardistry]

Her feet acquire little sprays of multicoloured light-feathers.

[incanted]

"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.

[cardistry]

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

[incanted]

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?"

[cardistry]

"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."

[incanted]

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

[cardistry]

"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."

[incanted]

"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.

[cardistry]

No fancy outfit appears.

"I don't know how much you used up doing those search spells, or how fast you use it up with the flying."