"I'm unfamiliar with this phenomenon."

"Well, if you come to court, you'll get to be very small and maybe someone there will explain it to you."

"How exciting."

"When you can see paths, you can walk along them, and if they get very small, then you get very small."

"What happens if someone tries to walk in the correct direction without being able to see the path, either because they do not have this magical ability or because they have been blindfolded?"

"I mean, mortals walk around all the time and just stay big. I don't think a blindfold would be different but I haven't tried blindfolding a mortal. - there's a mortal back at court, I guess someone could try blindfolding her and walking her off the paths?"

"How'd she get there?"

"Well, we enslaved her after she came to this faery ring. Running away from a marriage she didn't like, I think, though I haven't talked to her."

"Marriages are a thing mortals do. They give the girl mortals to the boy mortals and then they both promise not to run off with other mortals. Or with faeries."

"That wasn't the thing at all."

The faery shrugs.

"Lot of slavery going on or is that just interspecies?"

"Almost all mortal slaves are enslaved by other mortals, if that's what you mean? Most courts can't afford even one."

"Yes, the economics of every mortal trying to afford a mortal slave would be awkward. But in fact that is not what I meant, I wanted to know about your, ah, court's slavekeeping practices."

"Well, we're rich enough to afford a mortal overnight so we'll pick one up when they come here. That's not very often, though, maybe twice in a year? They don't live more than a couple of nights usually, a dozen if they're very stubborn, so you're kind of lucky that there's one here now."

"I assume that if I say I feel indescribably fortunate you'll start kicking me again."

"I'm not going to kick you if you lie again."

"Why, do you need lots of bells?"

"I'll cut out your tongue."

"Does it count as lying if I say 'good luck' while confident you won't have it and not appreciative of the incredibly remote possibility?"

"...if you said "I wish you good luck" I think you'd have a problem but if you said 'good luck' all by itself I don't think you would."

"Good luck!" chirps Cam.

The faery glares at him.

"Why would you even bother cutting out my tongue? You can't reasonably think you're getting your feast at that point. It's a testament to my many personal qualities that I'm still up for that after all the kicking."