i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[queensidecastle]

"I can have it attached to nobody, but I don't like to," she says. "It feels weird. Like trying to wear your watch as a hat. And no, I can't use it on myself."

[self_composed]

"How much is this 'feeling' actually, you know, a feeling, like if something were actually buckled to your arm, and how much is that just the only way you have to talk about it?" Bella asks.

[queensidecastle]

"It's not a physical sensation, if that's what you mean. It's kind of like an extra sense."

[self_composed]

"I don't suppose it ever senses any other things?"

[queensidecastle]

"Depends what you mean by 'other things'. I can tell who my power is pointing at, and I can tell when they would have gotten hurt if it wasn't, and I can tell whether or not I could cover somebody if I hypothetically tried. I couldn't cover you, for example; I just checked. No idea why."

[self_composed]

"What generally distinguishes people you can and can't cover?" Bella asks quizzically. "Is there any discernible pattern?"

[queensidecastle]

"In people I've known for a while, it seems to correlate loosely with how much they like me. In strangers and recent acquaintances, anybody's guess. Lazarus makes noises about figuring it out sometimes, but he's not always as good with the details as he'd like to be."

[self_composed]

"How odd," Bella says. "What else do you know about what you do?"

[queensidecastle]

"I can't think of anything offhand. Why, have you run out of questions?"

[self_composed]

"I'll think of six as soon as I hang up, but none are pouring out of me at the moment."

[queensidecastle]

"You can always call back later."

[self_composed]

"You take calls during arbitrary days when the sun's up?" Bella asks.

[queensidecastle]

"I have a very open schedule and am willing and able to let people go to voicemail when I'm busy."

[self_composed]

"That works," Bella agrees. "Are you normally around only people you can talk magic in front of, when you're not busy?"

[queensidecastle]

"Normally yes."

[self_composed]

"So that's your natively magic friends, and who else? People with storebought powers?"

[queensidecastle]

"Demonstrably, I can also talk magic to people who know about it but don't have any," says Chris.

[self_composed]

"I was thinking of people you hang out with in person, but you know what, that's interesting too, who else knows about magic and hasn't got any?" Bella asks.

[queensidecastle]

"My niece, for one."

[self_composed]

"How come she hasn't bought some?"

[queensidecastle]

"Well, part of the reason I say that the price of superpowers is probably beyond the reach of a Stanford undergrad is that I know it's definitely beyond the reach of a PhD in mathematics."

[self_composed]

"You said it wasn't a monetary cost. What is it about undergrads and PhDs that makes us unlikely to be able to scrape up whatever the not-money is?"

[queensidecastle]

"Now, granted I'm just guessing because I don't know the details of that conversation, but I'm betting they turned her down because she couldn't do them interesting enough favours."

[self_composed]

"What do people with magic to sell even want?"

[queensidecastle]

"I really couldn't tell you," says Chris, amused.