"She tries to set up systems that can implement her judgment without her being personally involved. It just takes more than she's had to get all the kinks worked out, but they are smoothing over time - she's only gotten involved in determining whether someone got to turn or not once in the last year, and it was someone she knew. Otherwise she's gotten to the point where she'll trust my department to run smoothly and there isn't an appeals process that formally goes up all the way to her."

"Is there a story behind that intervention, or was it just a case of quiet nepotism?"

"She told me not to pass his application. She disliked him personally and wasn't sure if he'd have any red flags that would show up on the form."

"Oh, dear," says Libby. "My faith in your mother's empressing abilities just took a hit. Well, it depends what she disliked him for, I guess."

"She had a job when I was a kid, and he was her boss; I don't know exactly what he said to make her dislike him and I didn't ask, but apparently she didn't want to invite him into the vampire community," shrugs Elspeth. "We do have to turn away or delay a lot of inoffensive people just to control the vampire population growth and not overload the people who handle anaesthesia during turning, and he didn't have any bonus features that would have guaranteed him an in, so I didn't think it was a big deal. She doesn't do this at all often - mostly when she was more involved she'd have me prioritizing witches she wanted particularly much or making sure I knew so-and-so was our cousin or whatever. It's not like she can never stand people she doesn't like. She doesn't like the Imperial Factotum but gets along with her for work purposes."

"That does sound a lot more reasonable," she acknowledges.

"The Imperial Factotum is the copy witch. She makes herself very useful and very easy to keep happy and well-behaved, so Mama overlooked things like that time she had me tortured," Elspeth says lightly. "She had to overlook a lot of things as long as people were credibly going to be decent going forward. At the time she took over the world, she and Grandpa Carlisle and two people she'd personally arranged to turn were literally the only vampires alive who'd never murdered anyone."

"A little bit happier than you'd be if it was my mama," Elspeth says. "You'd be basically okay with it, although exactly how much might depend on how she got there and some details... Happier with her at the job than anybody else you know, though. Who are you having coffee with?"

"My universe's version of your mama," she confesses.

Elspeth bursts out laughing. "So what's she up to?" she asks through giggles. "She doing okay? Gosh, it's hard to imagine her without my dad, I don't even have anyone else's memories of her from before she met him."

"She seems pretty happy, from what I can tell. She's studying something or other at Stanford."

"So she did go to college early. Cool. I almost want to meet her but that would probably weird her out. And I'm not sure if the time will be what I expect it to be when I come home, if I leave the bar for another world."

"Yeah, somehow I don't think 'I met your daughter while you were in the bathroom, do you want to say hi?' would go over well."

Elspeth laughs again. "I could explain it to her - unless yours is a witch too, and would block me too even if I never tried to hit her with anything with side effects?" Elspeth shrugs. "But I'd sure think it was strange if someone brought me my future kid from another world whose dad I'd never meet."

"Exactly," Libby agrees.

"So are you going to help her take over the world?" asks Elspeth. "And I wonder why you'd find yours a better world dictator than mine..."

"Most of this conversation has been you interviewing for the position of world dictator on her behalf," says Libby. "Needless to say, she passed."

"Oh my word, are you serious?" guffaws Elspeth. "Oh, that's hilarious, she'll think that's the funniest thing... Do you know what the difference is between yours and mine, though, in terms of which you'd rather have ruling the world?"

"...You know, I'm not entirely sure," she says. "I could make a guess or two, maybe. Mine might be more naturally inclined to be friendly to me if I help her take over the world, for example, although I bet that's not it."

"Hmm. Does yours have magic? At all?"

"Yes she does," says Libby. "She's a mint—that's a more generally applicable kind of magic than the usual run of native powers. But she's not the only mint I know."

"She doesn't have Mama's mental opacity? I hope you don't prefer her as a world empress because she'd be mind-controllable or something."

"She hasn't admitted to having your mother's mental opacity, but I bet she does anyway," says Libby.

"Do you know why she hasn't mentioned it?"