Sarkan accepts the gesture and takes the remaining seat. He threads his fingers atop the table, gazing somewhere into the middle-distance ruefully as he goes on to describe his own understanding of magic.

"Mages--wizards and witches are what I'm accustomed to calling us--we are born with a gift for magic," he begins. "Magic is an innate property within the self: you either have it or you do not. There are very few of us, discovered at various times in our lives before we are shipped off for immediate apprenticeship. I was 'found' when I was three. Others, not until adolescence." Like his own apprentice. He shrugs to banish that thought. Not that this information matters much to Anders. He steers himself back on topic. "We fuel our spells from within ourselves, and we are able to see, breathe, and sense when other people are steeped in magic. It's possible for us to affect and manipulate another creature's magic, but only if we can effectively match it or overpower it with our own power and skill."

Sarkan again meets Anders's gaze.

"To make things short, we can manipulate other forces, but power is derived from ourselves. It's not much like drawing energy from a massive force like the Fade, and if I didn't know better at this point, I would certainly distrust a magic power on that scale as malevolent until proven otherwise."