"I suppose he is a little older, so perhaps it is that way around."

"Or you could be completely different but came to the same conclusions, I dunno."

"Also possible. They are pretty good conclusions."

"I don't know why more people don't come to them."

"Me either."

"Iobel, not everyone wants to be immortal or thinks about being efficient over every other consideration."

"I can understand not everyone wanting to be immortal, but I don't get just letting people die after living short lives and not trying to fix the inherent problem causing it."

"Oh, I'm all for curing any disease you care to name! But Iobel wants to get rid of old age. And I think - it's the natural cycle of life. Besides, that's how a lot of progress gets made, new generations taking the place of the old ones."

"I will gladly postpone any achievement that can only be made more rapidly on the graveyards of people's lost grandparents."

"To be fair - monarch-hood you only got because our mom died. So technically you're doing that, too."

"I have not yet invented an immortality hex, and at any rate she didn't die of old age, did she? I heard she was sick."

"But we're pretty sure that she got poisoned."

"Do you know who?"

"Couldn't figure it out," says Edarial, softly.

"Not that it matters, she's better off dead, anyway."

"My first thought is Nataliem, but that's only because he's - known to be a bad person and also known to have opinions about the occupation of the throne."

"Yes. That's why I knew about him, I'd suspected... But I have no proof, and I'm not going to throw anyone in jail on a hunch. So." He shrugs.

"Well, he's already there. I wonder if he'd confess if asked."

"Maybe, but then we would have to talk to him."

"I'll do it if you don't care to go back. I don't like him, but he doesn't get under my skin very much."

"Go ahead. I'd rather not have to be in the same room with him ever again."

Iobel writes this down on her to-do list. And explains to Cricket, when he asks.

Edarial will snuggle with Berathyme, because he does not like thinking about the man who just so happens to be his father.

"Er, should I assume all this speculation shouldn't leave this room?"