1. Harry Potter is set in an English boarding school; Thea’s school is in America’s Pacific Northwest. What are the differences between these worlds?

2. Thea Winthrop encounters several figures from Native American mythology. What can you find out about Grandmother Spider, Coyote the Trickster, and the Sun God? What gods and mythological figures are specific to different North American tribes? There are equivalent mythological figures in many different cultures --- can you find out more about the Trickster character in other settings?

3. Thea meets an Anasazi shaman. Who were the Anasazi? Where did they live? When? What happened to them? What does a shaman do, what is his importance? Can the shaman be a woman?

4. The real Nikola Tesla was sometimes called “The Wizard of the West.” What achievements gave him that nickname?

5. In Cybermage, Thea is asked to give freely of something that is precious to her - without guarantee that she will get anything in return. Why is there such power in a ‘gift freely given?’ Would you have made the same choice in Thea’s place?

6. In the third book of the trilogy, the lines between Good and Evil get blurred. Some characters whom Thea had thought of as friends turn out to have their own agendas. How does Thea figure out who her real friends are?

7. In the beginning of Thea’s story, she was the Girl Who Couldn’t. By the end of the third book, she is someone quite different. How does she change over the course of all three books? What do you think she has learned --- about herself, about her world? How does power change her?

8. How do Thea and her group of friends influence and change one another? What can they learn from each other? How important is friendship in the end?