"Okay."

This is a satisfactory arrangement. And being petted as a rabbit is nice.

Milo remains teeny and fluffy and a rabbit until a little after sunset, at which point he reverts to a human, still perched in Jann's lap. He giggles and hops triumphantly to his feet.

"I did it!"

When Milo is not quite ten and Jann is not quite twelve, the Duke of Ferdinandia dies. His fifteen-year-old grandson Reko inherits.

Ainar and Celyta and a vast array of miscellaneous Raxwellian nobles - and Milo, and Jann - all go to Ferdinandia for the funeral. It is huge and impressive and there are solemn speeches and wine and less-solemn speeches after the advent of the wine. The new Duke Reko puts on his half of the crown of Raxwell, and nothing happens, not that anyone was expecting it to; it just falls over the way half a crown will tend to when you put it on someone's head. Later, in private, Reko and Ainar try to fit their respective halves back together. It doesn't work. It has never worked, but there's not much to do other than keep trying.

Reko escapes the ceremonies at the earliest polite opportunity. There aren't many places he can go and completely avoid well-meaning strangers congratulating him on his new title or wanting to talk about his grandfather... but his little Raxwellian not-cousins aren't strangers. He seems to remember someone having let the children into a courtyard earlier. He finds it.

Reko has the distinction of being the only person other than Ainar who has ever beaten Milo at chess. Milo respects him greatly.

When Reko enters the courtyard, Milo runs over and hugs him.

Jann pays attention to the possibility that Reko might want to hug him (what with the deceased grandfather), but isn't quite so spontaneously enthusiastic about it.

"Hi," he says, trotting up behind Milo.

Reko seems pretty content with his Milo-hugs. He sits on the cobblestones and hugs back.

"Hi. I'm a Duke now," he sighs.

"I saw," says Milo. "It didn't fix the crown."

"There was no reason it would've."

Hugs.

"Well, back when Raxwell was one kingdom, it had one entire crown," says Reko. "Then its king made some bad decisions, and it split into two half-kingdoms with half a crown each. The Dukes of Raxwell and Ferdinandia have been trying to put the crown back together ever since, but nothing's worked yet. Before it came apart, the crown would glow when crowning a new king, and if it didn't glow that person couldn't be king, and that's why we're dukes instead."

"The bad decisions were kind of funny," opines Milo.

"I think they were less funny to the people involved," says Reko.

"It's a magic crown," says Reko. "It came apart by magic and it has to go together again by magic or it's not going to work."

"And if it doesn't work my bones stay messed up forever."

"That too."

"Fairy Nightfire looked at it," says Milo. "And she said if the two halves of the kingdom married back together it would work. But I don't have a sister and neither does Reko."

"She also said that just trying to stick it back together with a spell wouldn't do anything good. I think magic glue falls into that category," says Reko.

"Yeah," says Milo.

"Probably," agrees Reko.

"Yes. Like that."

"It was an accident," says Milo, aggrievedly.

"...Oh?" says Reko.

"You can't tell anybody!" says Milo. "I wasn't supposed to. But Jann was so fluffy and he didn't get to pet himself while he was fluffy, so I snuck into the treasure room again and touched the rabbit carpet and snuck out and let him pet me while I was fluffy. I was even fluffier than him."

"I see," says Reko. "And nobody knows about this?"

"Except us and now you."