Eager to prove herself, she pulled herself up to her full height, raising her chin to a practiced, imperious angle. The kind that the ladies of court used when they were measuring up a suitor they deemed far beneath them.

It was a little bit of an unnatural look on Ariadne, but she felt that it made her seem a bit more confident.

"I was a good student for the missionaries," she said. "It took me less than a year to learn to read and write." Granted, magic was hardly reading and writing. But it was the best she could offer. "How do we start?"