( there's an admiring wistfulness to the way that she listens to his descriptions of historic magic—in part an earnest fascination with the things that he says, and in part a tempting distraction in something more distant from herself than the prospect of her own shifted species. it is a good deal easier to think on something so removed from herself, and

that alone prompts her to look back down at her book, but she is still smiling. )

A true point of similarity—'hedge magic' is a not uncommon term for surviving witchcraft. So much of the artistry of it all has been lost to fires and to time. The little wonders that I could master seemed...terribly small. And smaller now still.

( though it is interesting, perhaps, how readily and easily she deprecates her ability. how harmless she positions herself to be. )