"But maybe it won't help or nobody who could take over would be any better. I could probably cripple the entire court, but you saw the kind of orders I was under...."

"Yes. There might conceivably be a scrying spell that could get you someone's fairy-relevant name, and I suppose if we're considering incapacitating most of the court already I could flood the place with tea... at last, a practical use for the multiplying potion!"

"That involves getting close. Thorn is very smart. I don't want to try to hit him with anything he could conceivably see coming."

"Well, I wasn't thinking of pouring barrelsful of tea over anyone without first turning them into flaming stone rats or similar. I suppose a flaming stone rat probably can't drink tea. There is room to refine this concept."

"I don't have even nicknames for some of the lower levels and other satellites of the court."

"Very thorough spying might take care of that for you," he suggests.

"Yeah, it would."

"But if there's another plan you like better, it's all the same to me."

"There's probably no tidy way to bypass Thorn and get the Queen..."

"Mm?"

"Well, she's got a well-known nickname, but I know dramatically less about the structure of her court and it'll be several times larger and she'll have every contingency all the smartest fairies in the world can have thought up for her."

"Exciting."

"So I'd have to spy on her a lot. It's probably worth doing."

"Can I help? It sounds like fun."

"Why not. There's no reason to expect I'll be able to get the Queen's name and I only might be able to feed her myself."

"Whereas I can apply barrelsful of tea to anyone I like?"

"More or less."

"You can also amass local minions fairly trivially," he adds. "Very few people guard their birth names closely in this day and age. Up to you whether you have moral qualms about conscripting a demon army, I suppose."

"I'd want to make sure I was equipped to treat them decently even if I supplied myself exclusively from the ranks of the soulless and morally deficient, which currently I'm short on resources to do."

"Fair."

"Bit of bootstrapping to do."

"In what sense?"

"Well, right now I have - myself, and your help. And I am planning to conquer Fairyland, which I will need more than that to do."

"Mm. I think I have a different view of what it means to have my help."

"Oh?"