"I do not understand what - non-sphinx magic it is that you command."

"I'm a bit wary to give you information on all of the ins and outs of it. But - we have essentially unlimited material resources, both space and extraplanar travel, and a few others that wouldn't be applicable here without quite a lot of invested time."

"Would you believe me if I said I surrender?"

"... Depends on what your surrender involves?"

"I would go home and mind my own business until the sphinx decides to pick up her ancestors' mantle and kill me."

"She is really not the - 'pick up murderous ancestors' mantle' type. If she were, I wouldn't be working with her. What I'm worried about is you go home, gather up all you've learned so far from this conversation, and then try to kill her again but with more success."

"Apparently you can resurrect the dead," says the dragon dryly.

"We can. I've actually died once, it was unpleasant. Just because we can resurrect the dead doesn't mean we are willing to die."

"But it means that I cannot keep her dead. Cannot keep any sphinxes dead. Eventually they will all be back and there will be a coalition of them whether there is one already or not, and then they will find me and kill me, but I could spend the intervening time putting my affairs in order." Pause. "I am in the middle of a book."

"... Why are you sure they will want to find you and kill you?"

"You cannot fathom how massive the war was. If this sphinx doesn't want to kill me, her grandparents or her great-grandparents will."

"We are, surprisingly enough, not willing to resurrect people that want to commit murder because they want to pick back up a war that ended and cause mass havoc. Not unless we have ways to keep them from doing that - mass havoc, war, pain, death thing."

"Dragons and sphinxes," says the dragon, "are natural enemies."

"Where I'm from, angels and demons are supposed to be, too. I'm an angel. My boyfriend's a demon."

"Rumor has it he is indestructible. I am not."

"Yeah. But - I thought demons were all terrible until I was proven wrong by Cam. What exactly makes dragons and sphinxes 'natural enemies'? Because whatever that is, it might be based on things that aren't true."

"I have left my history texts at home," says the dragon dryly.

"Okay, well, Phix is unlikely to care about terrible things that anyone's ancestors did in anything but the practical sense. As in, if your great grandfather did something horrible to her great grandfather, she won't care or blame it on you in particular. So when dealing with us, history doesn't matter so much, and we are the ones in control of the resurrection magic."

"I'm a different kind of angel," she says, gently. "From very far away. You're not on Earth anymore, if you hadn't figured that out by now. I live here, but I didn't always. I actually was born on the Moon of another Earth."

"Did you ever say if you'd believe me that I would go home and mind my own business?"

"I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Within reason. Probation, of a sorts, might be possible? Not just - let you go home and drop off of our radar entirely, but let you go home and not die or be chained to a floor."

"I will," he mentions, "need my medallion to fit in my home." Pause. "I could also very much benefit from some painkillers. I have an appalling headache."

"I'll have to talk to someone about getting your medallion. And - painkillers, I can get. What kinds of painkillers work on you, are there dosage issues...?"