"Not helping," squeaks Edarial.

"Just saying!"

"Oh dear," sighs Raney.

"At some point it will need to be a topic of conversation. It has not yet been, it does not need to be any time very soon, and that's all that needs to be said about it over lunch, thank you Mom."

"... Should I just not talk?" offers Zevros.

"I don't know, can you avoid saying awkward things?"

"Weeeeell..."

"No. No he can't."

"It's not my fault that you find the topic awkward!"

"The question isn't whether you made it that way, it's whether you can predict it before poking it with a stick."

"... Yeah, okay, can't do that one. I will just not talk."

"It was my fault, I brought it up in the first place, I'm sorry. I just - I want to know how you're dealing, Iobel sweetheart."

"I'm safe, I'm emotionally stable, and some of the long-term details are waiting for better moments," says Iobel firmly.

Edarial fidgets some more but has nothing to add to the conversation.

"Sometimes it's like you're hexed, dear," sighs Raney, and she starts serving herself lunch. "Speaking of which how has your research been going?"

"Not hexed, Mom, just - thoughtful. I can walk through walls now. I have another section on my ideal teleport done. Four more, estimated, and then I can start deciding what to prune so I have a usable teleport. I'm stuck again on the immortality hex, I ordered a book on some of the medical stuff that should be here in a few weeks."

Softly, Edarial provides, "I will also give her my spell charts for detecting people through walls. So if she wants she would just be able to leave at any time."

"I'll probably actually want to revise your perception spell. It's good, but it wrecks a lot of detail. And I don't think you're trying to hold me here. I don't think I'd have to charge up one spell to walk out free and clear, all right? I have fully integrated that information."

"Making sure. I uh - actually made it to prevent - er. Peeping," he says, looking embarrassed.

"Wait," says Zevros, breaking his vow of silence. "You made it do silhouettes only so I couldn't perv on people when you cast it on me, didn't you?"

"...That hadn't even occurred to me. That's something, I suppose, but I still think you could let it show faces without making it totally intractable."

...Raney giggles.

"I've been trying to figure that part out but still haven't managed it while still - leaving some basic values of privacy."

"Well, maybe I'll make progress. Probably too complicated to get the spell to actually check whether people are clothed or not, though, the definition of 'clothed' would take up several square feet of chart by itself probably."