"I hope I'm not being rude to the person who magically enslaved you here but I was told not to talk to him," he says to Cecelia. "Can we be sure they won't get magically enslaved if we get them?"

...she looks at Rána.

"Are you asking, does she promise to never take them to fairyland, because that's not really fair, it's where she lives, it's nice, it's better than this horrible place -

- or are you asking, will I let them get even so they can go off when they're grown, which, sure, I've been doing all the caretaking for the little one as a favor to Cecelia."

"He can't lie without hurting himself. He means to let them go."

Sigh. "Okay. If we run into people when we're picking them up, will there be problems?"

"Very possibly. If you're slow."

"And the way to be fast is magic fairy slavery?"

"I could untangle them later."

"Once again Cecelia I hope I'm not being rude by not talking to the fairy."

Glare.

He can see this through all the eyes in the room except his own which makes it much less impressive that he doesn't even glance at him.

"You would have to be entangled to be fast. I - suppose in theory someone could be in your debt, too, but I don't know how good an idea that is, either."

"And Karen's idea was that, as she is already entangled, she could go do this?"

" - well not an idea in the sense of thinking it was a good one. Just in the sense of observing that the option probably existed."

"Probably for my safety it should instead be someone your brother dislikes."

"How many places might someone need to check?"

"I can narrow the middle one down to one building. The older ones - five or six places all in one settlement, probably."

"How big is a settlement?"

"Ten thousand people, maybe?"

Nod. "Karen do you actually feel equipped to do this, if not we could get a volunteer..."

"I wouldn't have to talk to fairies or anything?"

"It sounds like you should super not talk to fairies and should just go identify three kids and tag them with something so we can teleport them out. Cecelia, can you send me what you look like - uh, you just kind of picture it in your head in my direction -"

...she is kind of concerned about this instruction but she does that.

He passes this along to Karen.

"I can go find and tag three kids."