Shen Qingqiu raises his eyebrows at the implication that of course there was no way he could be good at magic. He crosses his arms and unsheathes Xiu Ya with a thought, flipping it lightning-quick up and around his head so that its sword glare flashes out across the grounds at his side, carving a deep and precise slash into the ground right along the border of the playing field before sliding back home into the sheath at his side without a single motion of his hands.

"I'm sorry for the assumptions I made," he says, pointedly. "And the accusations." He's not sorry for not leaving the library when she'd dismissed him, nor for what he'd insisted about the nature of fiction—he's still definitely sure he's right about that stuff.