@stal2walk
oh, yeah, that was just my point. I didn't want to say that gunpowder is better, just pointing a fact that setting doesn't make sense, where autor can easily make it perfectly justified, but didn't.
About dangerousness, her talisman exploiding her hand can be dangerous too
For example, her dad didn't want her to practice magic without instructor exactly because it's not that safe overall. But yeah, lets say that chance of her magic run wild much smaller than spontaneous combustion of gunpowder.
But hey, didn't she need help from gnome anyway? To encase her talisman inside, she is using earth magic. I'm pretty sure that any magic here is due to spirit lending you his power (whether he is showing himself to you or not).