"Yes, exactly! And—it sets a precedent, too, it says—this is who the Blakes are and want to be, this is what you can expect from us. It tells our future daughters who you should be if you want to be a Blake. That's not necessarily decisive, if some individual Blake is determined to be a Jess Favreau, but it does have an effect, I think. And I do know that previous generations have made inheritance decisions partly on the basis of who they thought would be best at carrying that spirit forward."

Here's Peter's car! Rosy is preexistingly acquainted.

"Like I said. Very good. Just, if I were a Blake, back in the days when this was a concern, I'd be tempted not to take the easy out - just tell my defeated enemy I could have taken their will from them, and I hadn't because I wanted them to show me they could do the right thing, but if they tried me again I wouldn't hesitate."

Into the car she goes.

"Well—you couldn't have, right, you can only complete the vassalage ritual with the active cooperation of both parties. You could've threatened to kill them if they didn't cooperate, but the ritual itself isn't much of a threat because it doesn't work nonconsensually."

"But - it's not the threat that I would object to? I don't know if I'm saying it right, or maybe I'm not understanding, but. If I were going to accept someone's fealty, it'd feel wrong if I didn't trust them not to stab me in the back without a guardrail. I'd still do it if it was the only way I could trust them, if I could see in their eyes that they'd turn the second I let them out of my sight otherwise but they'd still rather serve than die. But if I had defeated someone, and they'd been fighting me for a decent reason, and - I wanted them on my side, not just neutralized - it'd feel like losing something, if I told them you can only hold a blade for me if you can never hold a blade against me. Maybe I'm idealizing."

"I think you're idealizing but you're idealizing in a way I respect."

"Well, I do like to be respectable."

It is probably kind of obvious, as he pulls out of the lot and gets on the road, that he is actually unreasonably delighted to have his idealism approved of. Or at least respected.

"How about adorable, do you like to be that?"

"You know, it hasn't come up, I don't think. No older siblings to pinch my cheeks, and Mum's never been one to condescend. Liked to talk to toddlers like we were just very small coworkers - now why would you go and get pasta sauce all over your face, there's really no working with you when you're like this, that kind of thing."

"Well, I think you're very adorable, so I guess we'll find out if you've got a taste for it soon enough."

"I'll keep you posted. Right now it's mostly just confusing because it reminds me I've got most of a foot and, what, fifty pounds on you? And might have a communication gap on what adorable means."

"Adorable. Endearing. Of a nature that facilitates affection. Things don't have to be small to be adorable! Elephants can be adorable!"

"I can't say I've ever thought - well, the calves could be, and they're only relatively small? Relative must still be as big as I am, though... anyway, I'd hesitate to call Ed adorable if it weren't my prerogative as eldest to baby all my siblings, he's normally sized for his reference class. But I'm not going to be prescriptive, you're allowed to have a dialect."

"I am fearlessly willing to boop the end of a full-grown elephant's trunk and tell it it's precious should the situation call for it."

"It's probably not animal cruelty to confuse the living hell out of endangered megafauna, but I feel like that's all it has to recommend it."

"I am just very endearment-attuned, as a person."

"You know, I'd gotten that impression," Peter says innocently. "Something about your demeanor... oh, what's the turn here, actually? I occasionally go to the outlying woods but I don't know where your house is in them."

"You want to keep going straight down Main Street until it turns into Silver Maple Drive and then keep going down Silver Maple Drive until it turns into my driveway," she says, in the faintly apologetic tone of someone who realizes she has an objectively unreasonable amount of house.

"Ah. Main Street ends in your driveway. Are you certain you're not some kind of feudal lord?" But he does follow these directions.

"In my defense Silver Maple Drive actually came first. ...that doesn't help, does it."

"No! - did this town spring up around your domain for protection? Because in that case you might be in the different category of tower-wizard."

"The Strands were here before us, but there wasn't really a town then, the town and the Blakes sort of happened together."

"...right, you're not the only ones... the Strands, like Kelly Strand who's on Lu's soccer team? How many ancient wizard families are there in this town? I can't really imagine Kelly Strand doing any Jess Favreau nonsense but should my sister be very careful to avoid pissing her off anyway?"

"Quick ancient wizard family rundown: the Strands and the Favreaus are kind of at odds, the Blakes mostly try to keep the peace between them, and that's the three big families. After that there's the Ellsworths and the Van Allens lastingly affiliated with the Strands, the Paynes and the Hedlunds lastingly affiliated with the Favreaus, and the Carpenters lastingly affiliated with us, and a bunch more families that aren't ancient enough to do much political maneuvering though some of them still have clear allegiances. I haven't heard Kelly Strand is particularly vengeful but I might not have heard if she was subtle about it. I advise against being particularly awful to her but normal human behaviour is probably fine."

Peter's quiet for a moment.

"...God damn I hope Jess Favreau doesn't assassinate Archduke Ferdinand somehow," he says eventually. "Are people keeping an eye on that? I can't help feeling like she'd do it just to say she had."

"Trust me, we're on top of it. People are hoping that she'll manage to stay friends with Linda Ellsworth stably enough to do some good on that score despite her entire personality—I don't know how closely you're following that particular drama, but they were childhood besties and they keep breaking up and getting back together and I don't think it's entirely Jess having a power play. Maybe like sixty percent Jess having a power play."