"Well," says Miles. "There's not much opportunity for a little girl with wings to fly around here - crowded city, controlled airspace - but my family happens to have a house by a very nice lake that I think is pretty good for flying. Want to go there and see what you think of it?"

"Oh thank God," Ivan mutters.

"Okay," shrugs Pen.

"C'mon, then, I have a car waiting outside."

"Do I have to be in a coat again?"

"I had her bundled up in my jacket," Ivan explains.

"That... might be a good idea," says Miles. "But if you're very unhappy about the coat, we can skip it."

"Why a coat?"

"There are a lot of people on Barrayar who get very upset about people who are strange-looking," says Miles. "I'm short and a little bit weird, and if I go walking in the wrong places, people will try to bother me like they were bothering you before Ivan showed up. Having wings is a lot stranger than being short, so more people get upset about it. If you hide the wings, people won't notice them to get upset about."

"...This a no magic place?" wonders Pen.

"Yes," says Miles.

"Angels not magic," Pen explains, "but, angels look magic. So coat? Because no wishes, can't invisible."

"Yeah."

"Okay fine."

"Ivan, can we borrow your jacket again?"

"Yeah 'course."

Miles picks it up from the arm of the couch and gives it to Pen.

Pen stands up, scrunches her wings close to herself, and mostly manages to hide them in Ivan's coat.

"No, what is?"

"Have you ever been somewhere with very low gravity?" he wonders, leading her through the mazelike house toward the lift tube.

"The gravity Jovah have is fake?" she offers.

"Well, the gravity on Barrayar is real, but lift tubes have a fake lack of gravity. So people who can't ordinarily fly can go up and down them very easily."

"Oh. Okay."

"When I was your age I thought they were tremendous fun, but I don't know if you'll agree."