Her answer sounded so mechanic and rehearsed that Bellamy almost wanted to laugh. He knew there were restrictions on underaged magic in Britain, but the laws weren't universal. The only universal rules were things set down by the International Statute of Secrecy, and there wasn't a clause about underaged magic at all, so every country he'd been to did things a little differently. To someone in northern India, who apprenticed under a guru at six or seven and would learn magic slowly over the next decade in lieu of formal European schooling, the idea that children ought to be prevented from doing magic would have been ridiculous. Even more ridiculous when you started bandying about phrases like imminent harm to oneself or others; the language just seemed so far removed from reality.

"Did you just recite that?" he asked with an incredulous grin — he was making fun of her a little. "Is that part of the coursework here, memorizing the wording on laws?"

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