[Stephen isn’t nearly as prideful as he used to be, and yet being in this state swells that old hubris up with the right verbiage. Calling him stupid is like a burr under his skin — after all, when he had nothing else, he had always had his intellect.]

Really? Maybe you should consider that not all routes are useless, dangerous, or stupid just because you think you have better sense.

[Stephens flicks a wrist. A breeze swirls by, lifting up a handful of papers and plastering them to the wall in an oddly circular pattern. He hasn’t the excess well of magic to draw from in this world—in fact, using it so frivolously is not something he’d do on a normal day—but now? Getting these posters onto the wall is the priority, and it’s not like there’s anyone else passing by just now to notice.]

If they’re everywhere, there’s a reason for it. A connection to this circus coming to town, like you said. I want to know what it is — I want to know what is behind it all, and then maybe we have a better chance of fixing it.

[this logic]