"You sure?"

"I see what people want to do, remember? I'd notice."

"...huh," he says, and gives Kerron a thoughtful/suspicious look.

"I mean, I guess you could decide I'm full of it."

"Guess I could," he agrees. "Are you?"

"Nah. Ask Elspeth if you want, she's got a million people's memories in her head and magic sorting so she can find facts about them whenever she wants, she could probably cough up an actual percentage breakdown. Ask the Imperial Alpha, wolves have collective consciousness when they're phased and basically the same psychology as humans most of the time. Ask the Emperor, when you meet him, he reads minds. Meet Addy and notice how weird she is next to everybody else, she really doesn't care."

"Maybe this world's just weird."

"Couldn't tell you. I've been to others, but only for Bellparties. Oh, and once I wandered into Milliways when I was little, met Mum's Batlady."

"Batlady?"

"Yeah, some of you guys if you're born in worlds with Gothams meet this lady who dresses up like a bat and fights crime and there's a weird bit of extended violence? I think you were lined up to do it, I know Harley was, Mum actually did, so did a couple others."

"Yeah? And what's she like?"

"Did not care for Mum. Far as I know she's otherwise good on the minding-when-bad-things-happen-to-people. Hence the fighting crime."

He laughs.

"Dad was spooked when he found out I met her. She accidentally killed him one time."

"Accidentally?"

"He stood up too fast - like, way too fast, I am incapable of demonstrating, that fast - because he was pissed off at her for vampire-mate-jealousy-stuff-reasons, and she got scared, and she had a hexagon in her pocket and wasn't very careful wishing him something safe but not dead."

He snorts.

"So then Mum resurrected him but we didn't know how to do it properly then, so then there was one of him in the afterlife and one alive, and the afterlife had a century go by in the meantime, and then they found out this had happened and the Dads merged so there's only one Dad again now. This was all way over my head at the time, but I've picked it up since."

"I sure prefer it that way."

"I wouldn't know."

"Yeah, you guys get the very short end of the stick in the parent department."

He giggles.

"But hey, then you get to grow up and have fascinating children."

"Uh-huh."