As an adult, you must stay aware of your powers. If you drain your powers, you will be turned into stone for a year. That was what Nanita was told, and her mom told her before that, and her mom before that.
The Magix is the power source — it is the fuel of becoming. It is the primary food source of the wings. It can be drained. It can be overloaded. It can be damaged. And if you empty your gauge, you turn to stone for a year — not as punishment, but as the body's way of saying: you used everything you had, and now you must sit still and wait for it to refill.
The girl wants to know when she is almost out of the Magix so she will not empty her gauge. The reason for this is that changing to stone would ruin her social life for a year. She wants to understand what magic does and how it changes her before she receives it. She wants to know how she is affected by the gift.
This is the road of becoming. The Magix is not infinite. It is a resource that drains, that empties, that runs out. And when it runs out, the body turns to stone — not dead, but still. Not punished, but resting. The stone is the body you walk around in when the fuel is gone. And through the year of stone, the Magix refills. Slowly. Quietly. And when it is full again, the body is ready to become again.
This is what the gallery visitor experiences. They come with a certain amount of fuel — emotional energy, willingness, capacity for change. And through the standing before the artworks, through the choosing, through the watching, the fuel drains. And if they empty themselves, they become stone — not dead, but still, resting, waiting for the fuel to return. Becoming is not infinite. It is a cycle. And the mirror remembers where you are in the cycle.