"No, why are you trying to help me. Why are you not, I don't know, flying away forever from the ter—from Thorn, turning me into a sparrow or a statue or—what's your angle? You didn't seem to think he'd use the kind of power getting access to human tech would give him."

"He might use some of it, I just don't think he'll obliterate several kilometers. You can't hurt me or oblige me to go about it stupidly so I may as well see if there's any hope to be had within the time window before he hears from someone that you caught Yellow. Anyway, I can't turn you into a sparrow, you have my name. I'm not sure that would even change if you wished to be a sparrow, it might still count."

"Look, do you want me to just step down your orders and leave you be? You seemed to have other priorities but I'm not holding you for my amusement."

She closes her eyes, trying to find words. "I've told you what I want, I'm trying to figure out what exactly I have so I can use it to get that. And at the same time I have to second-guess everything because you're still a member of a species of sadists. So I'm having a really hard time knowing how to begin explaining, because I don't know if I can even make you understand."

She doesn't open her eyes, just hugs her knees and rests her face on them. "Fine. Here's where I'm coming from: species of sadists, member of." She gestures at Promise with one hand then hugs her knees again. "You've proven crafty enough that I am still more than half certain this is just some ploy, and I'm too physically and emotionally exhausted to even begin to guess what it could be, so of course that's very little evidence either way. And to you, a hundred years is a blink. I don't mean to dismiss what you've gone through, but in a thousand years it'll be little more than a half-remembered nightmare. In a thousand years I'll be dead if I'm lucky, way things are going. If I'm not, I'll be some fairy's pet, suffering some fate worse than death, without even the comforting thought that a thousand years after that it'll all be a memory. What's a temporary setback to a fairy is game over to me."

"I'm not even a hundred yet, probably. We don't start old. And a day is still a day."

"But after every one of your days there's another day." She raises her head, resting her chin on her knees now. "What's confusing you, here? I've outlined my goals—I'm still under orders not to lie, which I'd remind you you're not—and I'm not the kind of person who will just lie on my back and give up just because something's impossible. You're offering help? I'll take it, and worry about how that'll bite me in the arse when it does, because right now the alternative seems worse."

"Something seems to be confusing you; you asked 'why' and didn't seem to find my answers satisfactory and I'm not sure what me being immortal has to do with anything."

"It's not just your immortality, but that's part of it. The thing is that I still don't understand why you would help, or why you're—not Yellow, and I still expect something to give at some point. And I was trying to explain why I don't understand that and why I have the priorities I do."

"...Do I give the impression of being someone who wants Thorn to keep doing what he does forever? You think you might have an advantage that enables shutting him down. If you do I want to find out and since someone you care about is already caught I assumed you'd volunteer to help if we could come up with a real plan and then I wouldn't have to work alone or rely on slave labor except possibly a little of Yellow."

"You give me the impression that you want me to believe that you object to him and to slave labour, and this could be because you do but when it comes to fairies the background assumption is 'terrible' so I hope you'll excuse me if I don't fully trust we share the basic trait of altruism. That said, I am yes willing to help for the reasons you described, but the plan that comes to mind requires a little bit more of slave labour."

Promise sighs. "What plan comes to mind?"

"Subversion from the inside. In case orders actually work remotely via microphones and what-have-you, it sounds like the best idea, so that no one that doesn't already have access to his court needs to sneak in."

"So, suborn a court member, send them home before they're missed with airtight orders and hope Thorn doesn't notice... and from there?"

"Don't just release them. If orders do in fact work remotely, you can give them earbuds—little boxes this small that fit in ears and can transmit sound sent from somewhere else—and small microphones and cameras—which transmit image and sound to us—and we can use them to control vassals in Thorn's court without ever setting foot in it."

"If Thorn figures out we're doing that he can order us through the microphones."

"We don't strictly need them, then. We can even tell whoever that we're using microphones but keep them deactivated, to mislead. Or only one of us wears the feed and if the other notices the one was ordered they can countermand it immediately. Or we keep Yellow chanting 'I rescind all orders' in the background."

"Some combination of those strategies would likely do it. No one in the court has Thorn's name, even as a protective backup, as far as I know, so a mole only gets us so far."

"Then we apply more technology and mortal food," she says, turning her right palm up and using her left index and middle fingers to press the button there and reveal the hidden needle. "Or technology, sorcery, and mortal food. I'm hoping it will be possible to make it so cameras, microphones, and earbuds are all invisible and in the case of earbuds soundless past a certain distance. If we weave a wide enough web of moles, we can reach him and, and..." Pause. "Something. I don't know, I'm too tired to think, this is an old plan and would need to be adjusted for his resources."

"Food at one remove isn't very effective and every in-court attempt to subvert a new mole would be potentially very conspicuous. Mortal food probably works better under those conditions than fairy food would, even strongly claimed fairy food, but it's not a guarantee. We need to figure out a safe place or way to sleep, more immediately."

"I could try to open twenty gates to cities and find us a hotel room in one of them, I have my credit cards and my mother doesn't have access to my accounts," she says, momentarily forgetting she's talking to a fairy.

"What is a hotel room and what is a credit card?"

"...right. Hotels are buildings with lots of rooms whose owners let other people spend some time in them in exchange for money. Money is what humans use to trade instead of trading things for other things, basically a numeric value for things, and credit cards are one of the ways of transferring these numeric values to other people in exchange for goods and services."