Moses Ose Utomi is a Nigerian-American fantasy writer and nomad currently based out of Honolulu, Hawaii. He has an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and short fiction publications in Fireside Fiction and Purple Wall Stories. His debut books, Daughters of Oduma (Atheneum Books) and The Lies of the Ajungo (Tor.com), will be coming out in early 2023. When he’s not writing, he’s traveling, training martial arts, or doing karaoke—with or without a backing track. You can follow him on Twitter, but he wouldn’t advise it.
What does magic cost? Throughout my childhood in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the answer to this question was rooted in the magic of Dungeons & Dragons, where a spell may cost an incantation, a few ingredients, and some energy from the spellcaster. To some extent, most modern magic systems derive their cost from one of these currencies—some form of specialized knowledge or language, some form of physical payment, and some of the magic user’s energy.
“The mirror test . . . is a behavioral technique developed in 1970 by American psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. . . . In the classic test, an animal is anaesthetised and then marked (e.g., painted or a sticker attached) on an area of the body the animal cannot normally see. When the animal recovers from the anaesthetic, it is given access to a mirror. If the animal then touches or investigates the mark, it is taken as an indication that the animal perceives the reflected image as itself, rather than of another animal . . . Very few species have passed the test.” – Wikipedia
