Peninnah is now five, and her wingspan should be sufficient to carry her aloft; she's just having a little trouble with the necessary coordination. Isabella has worked with her, and so has Rinnah, but Peninnah is impatient and has given up on both of them in favor of asking Damaris for help, on the poorly articulated theory that Damaris, at age thirteen, is closer to Peninnah's own size and might make more sense.
"How are cousinoids weird? It would be really strange if - if Glass's kids and the Joker's kids were the same as us, because then they'd be the same as each other without any of the same parents!"
"It's not their not being us that's weird, it's their being at all," she says. "I mean - not that I want them to stop. It's just, I can wrap my head around alts, but alts of our parents getting together with people who aren't alts of our other parent and having kids that are almost kind of like our cousins or half-siblings or something... it's weird!"
"What if by the time Jane is back you and Yseult are both grown up and married? Do you think the people you marry will be alts?"
"I have no idea. I have no idea how I could have an idea. I have no idea if I'm going to get married!"
Keziah requires a little more altitude and some squinting, but then she can see it. "Ooh. Cool. Wow, it is too warm around here, isn't it."