China may know about computers, but coding is a comparison she hasn't really made before, and it earns Deon a brief pause in her footsteps as she looks over, considering.

"It's a symbolic language," she says when she resumes her initial even pace. "Primarily conceptual, rather than verbal, and it has no vocal component. Sigils are chained together in specific arrangements, often using intermediary symbols to ensure the intended direction or meaning, and those shapes channel magic into a desired effect." Usually a desired effect, at any rate, unless someone has gotten something a millimetre or two wrong.