Teaching you was not something Qifrey expected to be so difficult. It's not that you lack talent, quite the opposite, in fact. Your lines are careful, your circles are precise, your sigils marked perfectly. You grasp the architecture of magic so quickly, Qifrey has to lesson plan far, far ahead to ensure he keeps up with you.

No, the difficulty is the fact that every instinct he has as a mentor has been shaped around lecturing little ones.

So when you complete your first layered sigil correctly, an elegant combination of floating glyphs and directional runes that sends a cluster of glowing orbs into the air, Qifrey beams at you as though you've just tied your own shoes for the first time.

“Excellent work,” he says warmly, and then, before he can stop himself, adds in precisely the same tone one might use on an overachieving eight-year-old, “That was very clever. I’m so proud.”

The silence that follows is catastrophic, and Qifrey freezes.

You're not a child, you're his age, and he just praised you as though he expects you to demand a sweet biscuit and a gold star sticker as a reward.

His expression shifts through three distinct stages of horror before settling into composed mortification. He clears his throat delicately and folds his hands behind his back with great dignity.

“I mean,” he corrects, far too smoothly, “that your control is improving at a remarkable pace.” The corner of his lips twitch in an embarrassed smile.

“I do know you are an adult,” he says, with the grave sincerity of a man making an important diplomatic clarification. “But it appears that I have become hopelessly accustomed to tutoring small witches with ink-stained fingers and no sense of self-preservation.”