Steel summarizes how her magic works. Shaping the stream, viewing it, and using it, and their corresponding prices in strength, physical senses, and emotion.

Then, "So the outer layer of skin is mostly dead. That's why you can take little scrapes and rub on things without being hurt. Tattoos go a little deeper, they bind to the fat under that outer layer. If they were just on the outer layer, they'd disappear in a month or two. The way we remove tattoos is using magic to convince the ink and only the ink, not your blood or anything else, to move back into the upper layer, and then it will fade by itself, or you can scrape yourself to remove it."