"I bet you'll end up doing something even more complicated than that if you end up doing business with Talia!"

"I wouldn't be surprised! She does a lot of social networking?"

"Oh, yeah. She's got her clique—Seattle enclavers from the year before us, and she does outreach for them."

"That's cool! I've made connections with a surprising number of enclaves, which I can only credit to spider silk being excellent."

"It is excellent! It's a very clever strategy."

"I'm very pleased with our outcomes so far! I knew it was a good strategy but I wasn't expecting it to be this good this fast."

"Hey, whatever else people can say about us, we enclavers have survived this long because we recognize talent when we see it."

She giggles delightedly, partly because she is feeling relevant emotions and partly because that seems to be the thing to do when an enclaver says something like that to you. 

Flattery was totally the right way to go! Look at Adam trying to be charming and succeeding.

"Do you guys have thoughts on what you'll be specializing in? I'm going creative writing."

"Wilbur's artificing, obviously. I'm languages."

"Cool! Which ones do you speak? I have French and Latin, myself."

And also Mandarin but he sucks at it. At this point it would probably be strategic to show some vulnerability. He can't bring himself to do it, anyway.

"I have Latin! And Japanese, and Basque, and some clusters of Indian and Chinese and Doggerland languages."

"Some clusters?"

"Dad's a linguist. He says knowing a bajillion languages isn't actually a normal thing for linguists but apparently it's a him thing."

"Nice! It's a good thing your parents have worked so hard to prepare you."

Not that Adam is jealous, or anything.

"Mum married a mundane because she couldn't find a wizard who met her standards who was interested in going in on her 'exactly one kid, twins notwithstanding, and then work your ass off to prepare them' plan. I'm not complaining, Dad's great."

"That is a sensible plan! It's clearly worked well for you. My Dad is great too; he's also worked his ass off to prepare me. Of course, most of that work went into the marriage to my mom itself; that's how he got into Seattle enclave."

He is technically not criticizing his mom! Look how not getting involved in enclave politics he is.

"Makes sense! Mum never had a prospect from an enclave like that, she'd probably have compromised on the only one kid thing if she had, enclave kids are so much safer than indies."

"No kidding. My mom didn't want a huge family, though, she just had three: Talia, me, and Melissa, my younger sister. By the way, those spiders wouldn't happen to be a breeding pair, would they? If you're still...doing business next year, Melissa would want a baby spider or two. Her affinity is insects."

(Still alive next year. These kids have damn good chances for indies, from what Adam has seen, but he can't not think about the possibility. He thinks about it for himself too! But it would be rude to say it, so he doesn't.)

"They are a breeding pair. Just insects or arthropods in general?"

Adam mentally facepalms. Melissa would've slapped him for that if she were here. Well, no, she wouldn't have, she's too nice. But she would have rolled her eyes at him, which would have been worse.

"Sorry, I misspoke. I'm used to saying 'insects' cause most of what she's done so far is with bees, but it's, like, land-dwelling arthropods? She hasn't been able to get anything done with lobsters, but she warded the house against spiders since Mom was complaining about them."

"'Bugs,'" she suggests. "It's not a taxonomic term, albeit it can be used to include some creepy-crawlies like worms that don't quite fit. I would be happy to sell your sister some spiders, assuming we live, which is I think a pretty good assumption but if you wanted to take steps contingent against our not surviving we won't be offended."

"Let me know when you have some baby spiders you're willing to part with and I'll see what I have to trade by then. I do think you living is a good assumption, though! ...That's a higher compliment than it sounds like, coming from me."

"Sure thing. Pity your sister is coming in next year instead of in two, or I'd suggest you bribe a senior to take out a letter suggesting she contact our mum for all the spider research she and Dad did after we figured out Wilbur's affinity."

"Yeah, that's a shame."

That would be a more sensible spacing of one's children, wouldn't it? The original plan had been Talia and then Melissa with a year between them, and no Adam. Technically he is not supposed to talk about that, but also everyone in Seattle knows so it's not like it can actually be kept secret, but apparently talking about things like that with someone you just met is sharing "too much information" so Adam still won't.