[ Bastien has been here five years; he's not any less fascinated by or jealous of that specific use of magic, cigarettes set aflame from nothing, than the day he arrived. He watches it happen, and he thinks for the fifth time this month that switching to a pipe would be more economical, and he blows smoke out his nose. ]

Probably,

[ is what it works out to when both of those hypotheticals are averaged together. ]

But on the way there he would have to cut out a piece of himself that I am pretty fond of.

[ All he intends to make Isaac endure on that subject. ]

There was a mage from Montsimmard at the conservatory where I studied. Too good a flautist to leave in a tower, you know? [ It wasn't that at all. Obviously. ] But he was older. Around our age now, maybe. I thought that was ancient—but he had been there for a little while, [ is the point, ] so he probably left the Circle before you time.

I've wondered if he had much say in it.