"It's really pissing down," Edmund says unhappily. "Don't know what right the sky has to do that, really. Aggressive of it."

"- hang on," Susan says. "That, um, glittery girl on the sidewalk - I know her, that's Rosy Blake. She looks half drowned, poor thing."

Peter squints at the englittered person, evaluating her drowning status.

He pulls up to the sidewalk, leans over and pops open the passenger door. "Hey, need a ride? We're headed to school ourselves, and I don't think anyone should be walking in this weather!" he calls over the dull roar of rain.

Her sparkly holo-silver roller skates do indeed catch the eye rather extravagantly even through the pouring rain, though the once-matching jacket is leaving a trail of sequins behind it like breadcrumbs as the weather takes its toll.

"Are you sure?" she says, peering doubtfully into the car. "I did not have the foresight to pack a towel this morning and I'm concerned for the well-being of your upholstery."

"That's kind of you but I really don't care, it's all waterproofed, and I'm much more concerned about your traction in those skates than a bit of water in the car."

"Very well then, I accept."

She gets in, swinging her backpack off her shoulder and into her lap and pulling the door shut behind her.

"Cheers, Blake," says Susan brightly. "That's Peter, he's my brother, this is Ed, he's also my brother."

"Charmed," Edmund says.

"- also charmed. For the record."

"I will be sure to record it," she says, and in fact gets out a small and only mildly damp notebook from a front pocket of her backpack and jots down, Peter Pevensie, impromptu chauffeur - Charmed.

Peter laughs, startled. "- is that a notebook specifically for oblique literalisms, then, or is it multipurpose?"

"Oh, you know, just anything I feel like writing. To be honest with you it's mostly handwriting practice." She flips back a few pages to show him a glimpse of row upon row of tidily inscribed pangrams, each sporting some slight variation on this or that letter, interrupted by the occasional specific word that seem to be mostly experimenting with ligatures.

He glances at them long enough to get an overview, then returns his eyes to the road. "I've never invested in my handwriting. Maybe it's an area I could improve."

"If you want. It falls to each of us to decide where we prefer to invest our precious mortal time." After giving that somewhat weighty statement a moment to sink in, she adds brightly, "I put most of mine into being incredibly cute."

"That feels like a trap. Su, is that statement a trap?"

"As far as I can tell she's just like this. Which is to say, no."

"Then I will admit that you are succeeding."

"I know!" she says, with all the cheer and confidence in the world.

"Seems like you're being the person you want to be. It sounds nice," Peter says pensively.

"I'm very gifted in that regard."

"A good gift to have," Susan comments. "To thine own self, and all that - speaking of, Peter, did you ever get yourself to auditions for the play?"

"...yeah, I auditioned. They, um, want me playing Prospero."

"That's fantastic! He's the meatiest role they've got after Ariel!"

"...yeah... I don't think I'm going to do it."

"Why not?"

"Well - how much do you know about Tempest already?"

"Pretend my ignorance is complete and explain to me the problem."

"So - there's Prospero, who was Duke of Milan, and he loved to study magic so much that he delegated all the actual duking to his brother, right. And his brother staged a coup, because he wanted to actually be Duke instead of just doing his job for him. And Prospero is exiled with his three-year-old daughter, and he crash-lands on this paradise island, and says - right, I can do magic, I'll just get spirits to take care of my daughter and me. And the most powerful spirit he has is this fairy boy, Ariel, who he freed from being trapped in a tree and - I guess just decided that in return for that Ariel should be his slave for twelve years? And he also takes in this little... probably-human boy, Caliban, whose mother was a witch, and they've got this whole complicated history where he tried to raise him like his own child but then Caliban grew up and tried to rape Prospero's daughter and now he's a slave who Prospero hurts all the time, especially whenever he's rude. And he's really controlling and manipulative to his daughter and, frankly, everybody else - he makes Ariel recite the story of how Prospero saved him from the tree once a month so he never forgets what he owes - and he crashes an entire ship just to get revenge on his brother - he's just an awful person for ninety percent of the play? And for some reason people say he's the protagonist but I don't really think a manipulative slave-abusing wizard is a protagonist I like very much. And I don't really think I want to play him."

"I don't know, I think there's something to be said for manipulative slave-abusing wizards. Protagonists don't have to be good, they just have to be interesting. And think of the depth you could bring to the role!"

"Yeah!" Edmund agrees. "You've got the chance to take this character who's got so much about him that we should hate and say, what's going on inside his head? What makes a man act like this? Is there really something in him that's good and noble, something we should root for? Does he really think he's doing the right thing?"

"I'm not a good enough actor for that."

"Mrs. Katz thinks you are! That's why she wants to cast you! And even if you don't want to try making Prospero everyone's favorite by the end of the night, I really think you'd still have fun."

"I'll think about it," Peter grumbles.

The school's in sight. (The rain's let up a bit, too, which is why they can see more than ten feet out the windows.)

"It's a school play," Rosy contributes. "The stakes are hardly very high. Try it and learn something!"

Peter's grimace softens. "I'll think about it," he repeats, less grumbling.

He pulls into a parking space, not too far from the entrance, and turns off the car engine. "Alright. It was nice meeting you, Rosy. Now let's all get educated."

"Thank you for the ride! Your service will be remembered," she says, hopping out and sparkling away.

Peter takes the role. He can't stop thinking, all that day, about how he could make Prospero seem like someone who - wanted to do good things, and had bad tools, and found himself growing worse and worse as he tried to fit the wicked tools to noble purpose. And it's not like his after-school schedule is booked solid.

Months pass, from autumn into winter. His life continues mostly apace; he has rehearsals before his swimming now, most days, and relatedly, he can't carpool Su and Ed in the afternoons anymore. That's really all that changes. He makes a few more friends among the cast and crew, recruits one of them to the D&D group. His daily routine is less depressing than he had any real right to expect.

The performance comes sooner than he'd thought. He's got a nice satiny wizardy robe, and an actual wooden staff someone whittled together, and he has his lines memorized, and... he does alright, he thinks. People clap at all the right times, even though he hardly hears them with the lights on him. He plays the role, and maybe gets some of that depth across, and then he does it again two more times, Saturday matinee and evening, and then it's over. He has a cast photograph and another point on his list of extracurriculars.

Winter melts into spring. He doesn't try for the spring play; it's a musical, and he can't sing for the life of him. He tries to keep in touch with his friends from the cast, even though he's not seeing them every afternoon anymore. He applies to more colleges, and gets accepted to more of them than he was expecting. Graduation approaches.

So does his eighteenth birthday.

Someone has taped a bouquet of roses to his locker, pink and red and white, neatly wrapped in faintly shimmering white paper, tied up with a faintly shimmering pink bow.

Someone has also gone through that bouquet and carefully trimmed away all the thorns from every rose.

Peeking out from behind all this is the corner of a pastel pink envelope, matching the bow in shade if not splendour.

Um?

...he runs a finger along the denuded stems. Sniffs the blooms - they smell, naturally, like roses. He doesn't know when the last time he actually smelled a rose was.

Looks at the envelope.

He wasn't actually sure anyone outside his family knew it was his birthday. If that's even what this is.

He peels off the tape, carefully nestles the bouquet in his backpack's front pocket, and opens the envelope.

Dearest Peter,

Remember me? It's Rosy. You gave me a ride to school in the pouring rain.

I have been in love with you for months. I'm not sure exactly how long. It started with the matter of the car ride; a Blake always pays her debts, so I needed to know what kind of favour to offer in return, so I needed to know what you needed.

Did you know that you are an absolutely, scintillatingly fascinating person?

Maybe that's just me.

I should be direct about this: I have been stalking you, never outside of school but very diligently within it. I didn't quite mean to start, but when I noticed I was doing it, I didn't stop. I wanted to keep watching you. I wanted to keep reading the books I hear you talking about and thinking about the things you say to people and counting your smiles like rare birds. 🐦 Look! Happiness! Get the binoculars!

War and Peace is a tough read, by the way, but I'm getting through it. I want to understand what you're seeing there. It sounds like it's important.

John Norman, on the other hand, goes down like popcorn. What a beautiful world he made! Which one was your favourite? I think for me it has to be Tiffany. She tried so, so hard, and in the end she got to live happily ever after. ♡ I admire her enormously.

I want to talk about books with you. I think about it a lot. I wonder what you'd say about Matilda (tied for my favourite book several years running), or Ella Enchanted (ascended to share first place just this year). I wonder what you'd tell me to read if you knew I was asking.

I don't know how long I've loved you but I know exactly when I found out. You were explaining your thoughts on Prospero, and how you needed Ariel's cooperation to play him the way you wanted, because it matters, to how the character comes across to the audience, whether or not he's right that he's treating Ariel well. I was earnestly following along with the literary analysis and then you gestured emphatically about how it would be so tragic if Prospero believed in this imaginary vision of a positive working relationship while Ariel is genuinely cowering from threats he only meant to joke about, and all of a sudden I wanted to kiss you.

You were right, by the way; you couldn't have done it without them. I watched all three shows and you knocked it out of the park every time, and it would've fallen flat if you hadn't had Ariel laughing at your jokes and following your lead like an old dance partner and Caliban bitterly feuding with a father he loves but can't understand. On the other hand, they also couldn't have done it without you; everyone's performances were wonderful, but it was your vision that brought them all together.

Please know that this letter is not a plea from a helpless admirer drowning in a sea of emotion. I hold myself under no obligation to you (I rescued you from Jess Favreau's romantic interest; you're welcome), and I ask for none from you. I have accounted for the possibility that you might read all this and decide you want nothing to do with me, and that would be entirely fair of you, under the circumstances. I am well supplied with ice cream and sad love songs and I promise I won't die of a broken heart.

I do apologize, though, for putting you in a slightly awkward position: in order to say what I mean to say, I need to tell you that magic is real, and there are secret laws forbidding people who know about magic from telling people who don't, and the law permits me to tell you because I'm courting you but it doesn't permit you to tell your siblings unless you decide to court me back. The best suggestion I have for you is to point out to them how weird it is that Jess can light someone's homework on fire from across the hall, and let them draw their own conclusions. I don't think the veil is very difficult to pierce around here once you know there's something to look for. That said, if you want proof that I can't show to anyone else, you need only ask.

Somehow I've accidentally ended up sounding much more cool and mysterious than I meant to. I need to say something really dorky so you'll understand what you're dealing with. All my favourite movies are made for children and I cry whenever I rewatch the Lion King sequel, how's that? Not the Lion King, mind you, though I'll happily cry at that one too. The sequel with the two lions in love who may or may not be cousins. It's objectively not as good but they sing a song about how in love they are and that's really all it takes.

My favourite colour is all of them but I keep coming back to pink because it's good aesthetic shorthand. I strive every day to make the world a more adorable place. I love the Spice Girls, who I learned about from my aunt's music collection. Every once in a while I get in the mood to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory and then, the height of tragedy, I have to wait until I'm at home where it isn't illegal to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory.

I need to get to the point or I'm going to end up writing a novel.

I want to give you myself for your birthday.

There's a ritual in my family's library that lets one person bind their will to another, in true and perfect loyalty. It can be undone at any time by the master, and redone as many times as the vassal is willing. I know exactly how it works and exactly what it does, and I'll be happy to explain in as much detail as you'd like. I have thought it through very carefully. I trust you, of course, but I am not relying on trusting you. I want to do this even if it ends very badly for me in any of the hundreds of ways it could do that. I know, believe me I know, how insane it is to want to give someone complete and total power over me just because I'm in love. But I want it anyway. Because I think it's romantic, and I think you would like it. You're not reading those books just for the bird cavalry. ♡

You don't have to decide right away. If you want to get to know me better first, or interrogate your sister about all my worst qualities, that's fine and reasonable. If you want me to go away and never speak to you again and stop paying attention to you, that's also fine and reasonable. But at any time, if you do decide you want to own me, I can make it happen within the week. It's best done at the full moon but I'm good at compensating for unfavourable celestial conditions and I've done all my calculations in advance.

Yours (I hope) with love,

Euphrosyne Angharad Blake

You can safely ignore all this, it's just here to avenge my privacy if necessary.

Dearest Peter,

Remember me? It's Rosy. You gave me a ride to school in the pouring rain.

He does, actually, remember. It was the day he accepted his role in the play, which he thinks of as plausibly the best thing that's happened to him this year. And she encouraged him to do it, and made him feel less defensive about it; without her, he might not have taken it at all. He's actually thought about reaching out to her sometimes, but discarded the idea as obsessive.

I have been in love with you for months.

I'm not sure exactly how long. It started with the matter of the car ride; a Blake always pays her debts, so I needed to know what kind of favour to offer in return, so I needed to know what you needed.

...apparently, he was worried in the wrong direction entirely.

Did you know that you are an absolutely, scintillatingly fascinating person?

Maybe that's just me.

I should be direct about this: I have been stalking you, never outside of school but very diligently within it. I didn't quite mean to start, but when I noticed I was doing it, I didn't stop. I wanted to keep watching you. I wanted to keep reading the books I hear you talking about and thinking about the things you say to people and counting your smiles like rare birds. 🐦 Look! Happiness! Get the binoculars!

Well. Honesty is good. He doesn't think of himself as scintillating, or his literary opinions or conversations or smiles (however rare) as particularly worthy of preoccupation. But she seems enthusiastic enough for both of them.

War and Peace is a tough read, by the way, but I'm getting through it.

I want to understand what you're seeing there. It sounds like it's important.

John Norman, on the other hand, goes down like popcorn. What a beautiful world he made! Which one was your favourite? I think for me it has to be Tiffany. She tried so, so hard, and in the end she got to live happily ever after. ♡ I admire her enormously.

I want to talk about books with you. I think about it a lot. I wonder what you'd say about Matilda (tied for my favourite book several years running), or Ella Enchanted (ascended to share first place just this year). I wonder what you'd tell me to read if you knew I was asking.

...she's reading War and Peace? No one has ever taken his recommendation on that. It's a beautiful book, it made him cry, it took him a full year to read. Who has that kind of time? (Rosy, apparently.)

...John Norman?! When did she even hear him talking about Gor, he never talks about Gor! Why does she like it, it's misogynistic garbage that even he wishes he didn't even want to read! That Tiffany she's talking about was taken as a sex slave at the end of her book!

He manages to pop his brain back into his skull by the next paragraph. He likes Matilda well enough, though his favorite Dahl was always The Witches. Ella Enchanted he doesn't think he's ever read.

He has no idea what he'd recommend her. Maybe Anne McCaffrey, if she likes Gor - similarly pulpy, some similar... themes... but with less cardboard-y female characters. (Though she said she liked Tiffany...)

I don't know how long I've loved you but I know exactly when I found out.

You were explaining your thoughts on Prospero, and how you needed Ariel's cooperation to play him the way you wanted, because it matters, to how the character comes across to the audience, whether or not he's right that he's treating Ariel well. I was earnestly following along with the literary analysis and then you gestured emphatically about how it would be so tragic if Prospero believed in this imaginary vision of a positive working relationship while Ariel is genuinely cowering from threats he only meant to joke about, and all of a sudden I wanted to kiss you.

You were right, by the way; you couldn't have done it without them. I watched all three shows and you knocked it out of the park every time, and it would've fallen flat if you hadn't had Ariel laughing at your jokes and following your lead like an old dance partner and Caliban bitterly feuding with a father he loves but can't understand. On the other hand, they also couldn't have done it without you; everyone's performances were wonderful, but it was your vision that brought them all together.

He remembers that. Ian had been talking about how he wanted to interpret Ariel, and Peter had... well. Rosy summarized it quite neatly. And wanted to kiss him about it, apparently.

Please know that this letter is not a plea from a helpless admirer drowning in a sea of emotion.

I hold myself under no obligation to you (I rescued you from Jess Favreau's romantic interest; you're welcome), and I ask for none from you. I have accounted for the possibility that you might read all this and decide you want nothing to do with me, and that would be entirely fair of you, under the circumstances. I am well supplied with ice cream and sad love songs and I promise I won't die of a broken heart.

It's a good disclaimer for a love letter, he thinks. It'd mean more to him if he were like Edmund, trying to have a practice love without any teeth; but as an opening, reassuring him that he won't break her heart is a good move. Takes a bit of the pressure off. Not all of it, by any means, but some.

...he does remember some awkward chats with Jess Favreau last semester. He didn't like how she looked at him. And then she... sort of conspicuously, in retrospect, stopped looking at him.

I do apologize, though, for putting you in a slightly awkward position:

in order to say what I mean to say, I need to tell you that magic is real, and there are secret laws forbidding people who know about magic from telling people who don't, and the law permits me to tell you because I'm courting you but it doesn't permit you to tell your siblings unless you decide to court me back. The best suggestion I have for you is to point out to them how weird it is that Jess can light someone's homework on fire from across the hall, and let them draw their own conclusions. I don't think the veil is very difficult to pierce around here once you know there's something to look for. That said, if you want proof that I can't show to anyone else, you need only ask.

...this letter has gotten weirder. How did it get weirder.

She could be very intensely Wiccan. She could, for that matter, be insane - that's really most likely, given the stalking. He will bear these hypotheses in mind.

But.

He has seen Jess Favreau do... strange things. She tried to impress him, a few times, during that brief period where she paid attention to him. Showed off some tricks she could do with a candle, making the flame dance. When he didn't seem impressed enough, she'd done... something. His backpack went up in flames, and she walked away, but when the flames died down his things weren't even singed - except some hairs on his leg that had been too close to where the bag was set down.

He will certainly ask for further proof. But he's not dismissing it out of hand.

Somehow I've accidentally ended up sounding much more cool and mysterious than I meant to.

I need to say something really dorky so you'll understand what you're dealing with. All my favourite movies are made for children and I cry whenever I rewatch the Lion King sequel, how's that? Not the Lion King, mind you, though I'll happily cry at that one too. The sequel with the two lions in love who may or may not be cousins. It's objectively not as good but they sing a song about how in love they are and that's really all it takes.

My favourite colour is all of them but I keep coming back to pink because it's good aesthetic shorthand. I strive every day to make the world a more adorable place. I love the Spice Girls, who I learned about from my aunt's music collection. Every once in a while I get in the mood to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory and then, the height of tragedy, I have to wait until I'm at home where it isn't illegal to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory.

She sounds... cute. He doesn't think he's watched the Lion King sequel, though he doesn't remember every film from his childhood. The inability to pick a favorite color is charming. Magical theory sounds kind of fascinating.

He genuinely likes the idea of striving to make the world more adorable, if she means that and she isn't just saying it. It scratches the itch in him that says people should care about things. He hasn't actually met a lot of people outside his family who do. He thinks Rosy might.

I need to get to the point or I'm going to end up writing a novel.

I want to give you myself for your birthday.

There's a ritual in my family's library that lets one person bind their will to another, in true and perfect loyalty. It can be undone at any time by the master, and redone as many times as the vassal is willing. I know exactly how it works and exactly what it does, and I'll be happy to explain in as much detail as you'd like. I have thought it through very carefully. I trust you, of course, but I am not relying on trusting you. I want to do this even if it ends very badly for me in any of the hundreds of ways it could do that. I know, believe me I know, how insane it is to want to give someone complete and total power over me just because I'm in love. But I want it anyway. Because I think it's romantic, and I think you would like it. You're not reading those books just for the bird cavalry. ♡

You don't have to decide right away. If you want to get to know me better first, or interrogate your sister about all my worst qualities, that's fine and reasonable. If you want me to go away and never speak to you again and stop paying attention to you, that's also fine and reasonable. But at any time, if you do decide you want to own me, I can make it happen within the week. It's best done at the full moon but I'm good at compensating for unfavourable celestial conditions and I've done all my calculations in advance.

Yours (I hope) with love,

Euphrosyne Angharad Blake

Peter hefts his bag, tucks the letter into his pocket, and goes into the men's room, where he can have a panic attack in peace. Hopefully unobserved.

There is no sign that anyone might be observing him in the men's room, but then, clearly someone is very good at observing him tracelessly, so who knows?

What a fantastically helpful thought.

After mechanically wiping the seat off with some tissue, he sits down, his trousers still fully fastened, though straining at the zip. He puts his head in his hands and makes a frankly pathetic whining sound.

He doesn't have the slightest idea where to begin processing the end of that letter. Stalking him is one thing; it's not a good decision by any means but she could have picked someone worse, and she seems to have enjoyed herself. Giving him herself for his birthday? Binding her will to him? Offering him complete and total power over her?

Not now, penis, he's trying to make a point.

It's a worse decision than he previously thought possible. Magic apparently changes the calculus on that. Rosy says that she has thought through how this could go wrong, and still wants it. Peter is absently curious what would possibly constitute it going right.

He knows that some people are submissive in bed. He's pretty sure he would be, off and on, if he ever did have sex. Would he want a woman to order him around, tell him exactly what to do for the night and make him her toy? Sure! Would he want to be her property for the rest of his natural life? Fuck, no!

He breathes. It's obvious that Rosy thinks something good could come of it. And if he's unfailingly good to her despite the power dynamic, if he does right by her and doesn't give into any of the thousand temptations even in a normal relationship to get what he wants at her expense, if he doesn't snap somehow and decide to personally reenact the works of the Marquis de Sade with a horrifically willing participant - he could see it being nice. Like a normal relationship between two consenting adults, just sort of shored up by the unnatural power binding her soul into submission.

She says she thinks he'd like it. She's not wrong. His internet history would - well, it wouldn't say anything actually, because he uses the incognito tools like any sensible teenager. But that fact aside, it would agree wholeheartedly. When he's getting off, he wants control, he wants to have someone in the palm of his hand and do exactly what he wants. He likes stories with mind control, nothing too warping, but something that reinforces, makes it hard to say no. (Is that how the ritual would make her? Pliant and willing and - not now, dammit.)

He's half tempted to take the deal just to make her never do this again. Like taking the knife from a ranting madwoman, more for her own sake than anyone else's. It'd be cruel, but it would keep someone else from hurting her worse. He's not the only boy who gets off on control.

But she said she made the offer because she loves him.

It'd be... evil, he thinks, to take that love - no matter how misdirected, no matter how crazy - and use it to hurt her.

He thinks about the possibility of just telling her no, I can't do it. It would really be the sensible thing to do. He's not invested yet, and she says she can handle rejection.

But he doesn't want to let this whole thing go. To turn down this glimpse of a world with magic, and a girl who wants him, and - to let her offer her soul to the next boy who comes along.

What does that leave? Taking her offer? Taking her soul?

- no, that's not it. She said he doesn't have to do it right away. That he could take some time to get to know her better. Maybe he can just leave her ritual to cool a bit on the table, while he figures out... well, who she is. Whether they really fit.

Whether he could love her enough to make her his.

...alright, his stomach isn't tied in knots anymore. Maybe he can have that wank he's been putting off, now.

He doesn't take long. He really was astonishingly worked up. He cleans up, re-fastens his belt, and... takes out his phone. Texts Rosy's number.

hey, is this rosy? it's peter

pevensie

got your letter, wanted to chat about it

Hello! 💖

Or anything else you'd like to say. I'm just very excited about literary analysis.

honestly i always found her ending unsatisfying and tragic but i've recently seen evidence that some people would quite like to be in her shoes

so i'm re-evaluating

literary analysis is not actually the part of your letter i found most urgent though

i would like to request evidence of magic more concrete than favreau's fucked up candle tricks

at earliest convenience

also i'm definitely asking su for that character evaluation although i expect it to be of limited use because if she knew you were stalking me she'd have told me no matter how cutely you were doing it

I'm in the park next to the school if you want to come say hi! I can show you something that I think is reasonably proof-like.

And, a few seconds later, like she just couldn't help herself: Really though, she and Drusus Rencius obviously belonged together. They were so sweet.

Different text channel. Susan.

if i meet privately with rosy blake how likely is she to kidnap me and perform deranged experiments on my helpless body for the rest of my natural lifespan

scale of one to ten

If Rosy Blake kidnaps you she will be very confident it was in your best interest, and if you disagree she will send you home with an apologetic fruit basket.

Also, do you need me to call the police.

eh. keep them on standby if i don't come home

Back to Rosy.

be there in ten

He's there in ten. The roses are sticking out of his bag, gently held in place by the zip.

There is a delightedly bouncing Rosy waiting for him at the edge of the park! She waves as soon as she sees him.

God, but she is cute. He waves back and approaches, eventually fetching up at a respectable girl-he-doesn't-know-well conversational distance. "It's good to, um, meet you. I know we've met but this does feel more substantial."

"I'd imagine it would! Come on, there's a nice shady spot over there under some trees. My best magic trick is much less spectacular in direct sunlight."

"Right, come into the shadows, the witch is a friend, grues have been extinct for three hundred years..."

He follows cheerfully.

"Grues are not and have never been real. The whole category of 'things that eat you when you're alone at night' has been wildly exaggerated in mundane media."

The shady spot isn't far. There's a couple of benches under the gently swaying leaves. Rosy steps between them to stand behind them both, her body angled to shield her clasped hands from anyone who might be passing by on the path.

"Come here and look at this," she says, closing her eyes to concentrate.

At first it's nothing much, a faint glow you could think you were imagining. Then light spills between her fingers, fiercer and fiercer until it glows right through her flesh like a high-powered flashlight. When it can get no brighter, then, she opens her hands.

A blazing jewel the size of a robin's egg shines with pure white light, an uninterrupted silhouette of brightness. Then a few silent cracks begin to mar its surface, and with them comes colour. Red here, yellow there—but before the red piece has finished cracking off, it's divided into ruby and crimson and mahogany and wine—and each shade fragments into a dozen more, over and over, leaving her cupped hands filled with a thousand brilliant shards of colour. The paler shades gleam brightest, but in the shadows under the trees, even the stately charcoal grey and the abyssal midnight blue manage to make enough light to be seen—if it is light that lets him see them.

Then, as she concentrates harder, the shards begin to lift. They swirl into the air in a riotous dance, with no notion of like following like, blues mingling with yellows, greens spiraling around purples.

"You can touch them if you like," she says in a hushed tone, only now opening her eyes to gaze in rapturous adoration at the spectacle she's created.

He stares, for a moment.

Then he reaches out and runs his fingers through the flow of shards.

They brush against him as little points of softly radiant warmth, and swirl in his wake wherever he moves his hand. Rosy is smiling, also with softly radiant warmth; making the lights seems to affect her really deeply, both in terms of the concentration it requires and the emotion it evokes.

"...it's beautiful," he says eventually. "And very, very magical. Consider me convinced."

She nods slightly, and closes her eyes again. All the points of light rush to absorb themselves into her face and hands, these being most of the exposed skin available; for a brief moment she's awash in a haphazard scatter of colour, and then the light fades and she takes a breath, pulling herself out of her quasi-meditative state.

"...is that why you don't have a single favorite color?" he wonders. Then he shakes his head. "Not really the top priority question, I guess."

"Kind of the other way around, actually! Any Blake can do what I just did, but I get more colours out of it than almost anyone, and that's probably because I love them all so much."

"Oh, that does make sense."

He bites his lip. "I - want to lay my cards on the table. I'm concerned, by the stalking, but I honestly don't really mind it. I'm much more concerned by your offering me your soul, and I really do mind that. It's not a fair thing to do to someone, when they could hurt themselves almost as badly as they could hurt you. I - I trust you had your reasons. I don't think I understand where you're coming from, not really, but I can understand... wanting things that could be bad because they could be good too. I think it's the same reason I came out here to meet you. I'm rambling a bit."

Deep breath. "Can we get to know each other? I'm not accepting your offer and I'm not turning it down. I'm just... putting it out of reach. I want to know who you are, before I even think about that."

"...I mean, by all means let's get to know each other, I'm hardly about to object to us getting to know each other, I'm just not sure exactly—when you say 'before I even think about that', do you mean you don't want me to talk about it, and if so does that also mean I can't argue with you about Drusus and Lita?"

"No, I mean - I'm going to keep it abstract. I don't want you to pressure me on it, but for one thing you already said you wouldn't, and for another thing it'd just drive me away. I'm just trying to get to know you without it feeling like life or death. You can help by being yourself... which I can't imagine is going to be a problem."

"I would say 'no power on this Earth can make me be anything else' but in fact there are some. It's just unusually difficult. Anyway so can I argue with you about Drusus and Lita, or would you rather pick a slightly less intense conversational topic?"

"No, by all means let's argue about Drusus and Lita. What do you see in them? I mean, I liked the book, but - not really on that level, I don't think..."

(His copy of Kajira of Gor is not dog-eared, per se, but the spine naturally falls open to certain pages that he's read more than others. Generally one-handed.)

"...I mean, did you not swoon adoringly—okay I will grant that you probably didn't swoon adoringly, but some equivalent—when they came out of what's-his-name's establishment so powerfully in need of each other that Drusus almost defiled the woman he thought was his queen right then and there? Like, not to say that I don't have opinions on the way the text handles gender, I have lots of opinions on the way the text handles gender, but if we take Tiffany-Sheila-Lita to be an unreliable narrator, and assume that every time she says something about the ineffable nature of womanhood she's actually talking about her kinks, then textually she's just right that she needed to get her head out of her behind and stop defining her worth by her ability to exert power and start pursuing and being pursued by the thing she actually wanted, which was total domination by men in general and Drusus Rencius specifically. And it's not even like it ended badly for her—I mean obviously it textually ended great for her because they spend the whole epilogue having fantastic sex, and we're supposed to take that as a clear happily-ever-after cue, but even from a pretty cynical perspective I think it's clear that the two of them are legitimately good for each other and legitimately in love with each other and, at long last, legitimately treating each other well to the extent they know how, and also the narration was pretty vague about the bit at the end but I have chosen to headcanon that she got to peg him even though I know that's not what the author meant because I think it's a charming encapsulation of what I think the author did mean which is that even though he has total power over her as his slave he doesn't need that to define every aspect of their lives and they can express genuine love for each other in ways their society might not necessarily look kindly on because what matters is the two of them and what works for them, regardless of what you, I, or the people of Gor would think."

She pauses, breathes, reviews the number of words that just came out of her mouth, and makes a sheepish zipping motion as though to indicate that she is done now and he can speak.

Okay, that was a lot.

He did not swoon adoringly at the part where Drusus nearly lost his self-control and held himself back by the barest thread, but he did have to wank about it, which is kind of similar. He sees what she's saying about Tiffany not defining herself by her ability to exert power, even if he's got quibbles with it. He's following along with her point about the epilogue, up until she mentions pegging and he chokes on nothing, vivid images of Rosy in a strapon suddenly flooding his brain and sending his blood in various inconvenient directions.

Normal function resumes by the time she starts talking about how just because Drusus has power over Tiffany it doesn't mean it has to define their entire lives. Which is a very respectable point, even if he's still not sure how it'd hold up in the real world. Also, his ears are still bright red and he's hard again even though he got off fifteen minutes ago.

"I, um. Interesting points. I'm."

He shudders out a breath.

"Maybe we can talk about Matilda instead? Sorry, I - don't have an intelligent response - I can think of one in a bit, maybe -"

She reverses her sheepish zipping motion. "No that's fair. It was a lot. By all means let's talk about Matilda."

He takes another couple of steadying breaths.

"The thing I always liked about Matilda," he says eventually, "when I was little, was that - she had to win. She didn't have another option and she didn't pretend to. Charlie Bucket was happy just to have a magical time, James didn't really do much of anything to get his magic peach, that girl from the Magic Finger... wasn't even really involved with her plot... but Matilda needed to get out, and she did what she had to, and she got out. I liked the boy from The Witches too, even more actually, because he had the same kind of - determination. He was hurt and trapped, and he got himself out, and he took up the good fight because he didn't want other kids hurt."

Pause.

"That sounded a bit grim, I guess. I was kind of an intense kid."

"No, I think that makes perfect sense! I really admire characters who have something to fight for and are out there fighting for it." (She will not tie this back to Tiffany. Peter does not seem ready to hear about Tiffany any further today.)

"Yeah. Something that's real, so real even a kid can tell it matters. It kind of held over into what I like now, too, but - narrower? Gor aside, that's a big part of what I get out of War and Peace, that... everybody's trying to find something they'd die for, or live for. And they try these things on for size, like glory and patriotism, and none of them fit well enough to cover up the hole inside... it has to be love, in the end, not love of one person but love of every person, that makes you keep going, fix the world no matter what it takes."

"Hmm," she says thoughtfully. "I guess I wouldn't know, I've never been much of a 'find something to fill the void' sort of person." She is being so, so good and not making any jokes about love filling anyone's holes and there is no one around to praise her for this. Tragic. "But I think I might see what you're saying. Love is a worthy cause in a way most other things aren't, because it's... about people? I'm not sure I'm saying this right."

"Mm. Love, agape, love of everyone, isn't - fragile the way other things are. If your purpose is just loving one person, they could die, and you'd be adrift. If you love your country, it could collapse, go rotten from the inside, stop really being your country anymore. But if you love mankind... there's always a core, there, to keep you going."

"Huh. See, I wouldn't say that at all! I love my family and even if they all died there'd still be—the thing that it meant? Their memory, their legacy, an answer to the question 'what's the Blake thing to do?' It wouldn't be gone. But it would be—static. If you're driven by love of something that's out there alive in the world, you don't carry the whole answer to the question inside yourself, because part of the answer is in them. And people live and grow and change. If you want to love someone properly you can't decide how to do that without consulting them and you can't keep your answer steady while the world changes around you, you have to grow and change with them."

Wanting to kiss Rosy is not a proportionate or appropriate response to her having good opinions, nor is it taking things slowly while they get to know each other.

"...yeah. Yeah, I think that's - more the truth of it. You can love somebody that isn't there anymore, but it's - dangerous. You risk idealizing. Thinking they were perfect. Thinking of course they'd agree with what you're doing now, you did it all for them, when really you've been doing it for the shadow you cast of them..."

"I think," she says quietly, "part of the reason I want to give myself away is so that I can't screw that up. So that I'm never allowed to forget that—the answer to the question 'how do I love this person' is in them and not in me."

"You're right," he says. "That is romantic. I still don't know if it's - practical, or something that I can handle responsibly, and it definitely isn't something I can rush into. But it is romantic."

She smiles.

Peter turns his head away, smiling softly, then stops smiling and squints at a figure some distance away. "What is my little brother doing in the park?" he wonders.

Edmund waves cheerfully once spotted.

"I certainly have no way of knowing but at a guess I am going to say espionage and/or backup."

Rosy waves cheerfully back.

He jogs over. "I was spying on you, obviously. I didn't actually hear what you said, I was specifically out of earshot, but what's my brother doing here is an easy lip-read."

"Why were you spying on me???"

"Susan's telepathy does not work over text and she didn't know how seriously to take your exhortation to call the police should you fail to return. Thus was I dispatched."

"Very reasonable of you," says Rosy. "Hello."

"Hullo! The conversational dynamic I have witnessed so far indicates that my brother likes you, which implies that I like you, but at this level of remove the error rate is high. Pleased to meet you regardless."

"I was joking about the police thing," Peter says, though whether it's to Rosy or Edmund is slightly unclear.

"I'm very likeable in most situations but I recognize that my own actions have put me at a significant disadvantage here. Luckily I seem to be overcoming it."

"I don't have any reason to dislike you so far apart from your having inspired some slightly alarming texts, which, well, haven't we all."

"I may have written Peter a long and wildly overenthusiastic love letter and taped it to his locker alongside a bouquet of defanged roses."

"No!" he says, delighted. "Well, I think that's lovely, even if you did somehow give Peter the impression you were going to steal his bones. Peter, are you -"

"Getting to know her first! I am not diving into a relationship with no lead-up."

"Oh, fine." Aside, to Rosy: "He does like you and for some reason he's trying to ignore it, which I disapprove of so I'm telling you anyway. Make him watch a film with you and ask him his opinion of it."

"Ed!"

"Oh, do let's watch a movie together, that sounds like a fantastic idea. If you're all right with it, Peter."

"Yes, that sounds fine. Ed, will you stop meddling."

"You'd like The Princess Bride. Now I'll stop meddling. Rosy, it was lovely to meet you, I wish you the best of luck in your efforts on my brother's virtue."

"Likewise, and I appreciate your support!"

Edmund flees, smug delight fading into the distance.

Peter hugs his knees to himself. "Well, that's Edmund."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just. ...he wants this thing between us to work out because it'd make me happy, and he thinks it will, and he's got no idea of any of the context, he thinks I just finally found a girl who's bold enough to get me out of my shell and talking. Not, you know, magic and complicated questions of philosophy and all that. And I can't really tell him."

"You can just date me if you want! I am fully open to you just dating me. ...I may occasionally fluster you with reminders that you could own me if you wanted. Unless you find that upsetting enough to want me to stop. But I'm not opposed to a normal relationship, if that helps."

"...it does help. I think it'll also help once I... know more about magic, and how it changes things? I mean, Favreau could already set me on fire, that hasn't actually changed, but it's still not the world I thought I knew. I have to re-evaluate a lot of things, and it feels unsteady."

"Very fair. I'll do my best to catch you up on everything I know that you don't. In some kind of sensible order and slowly enough not to be totally overwhelming. This may be very difficult."

"Well, I don't want to put you out. You have the option of saying actually, I'd have pledged my soul to you, but explaining how magic works is a bridge too far and dropping me."

"I have the option but I'm hardly going to take it."

"Are you sure? I can make it very tempting."

She shakes her head, laughing. "I'm sorry, I'm trying so hard to come up with a reasonable response to that and I just can't. If stalking you for months and offering to magically enslave myself to you doesn't communicate that I'm genuinely and lastingly interested, what on Earth will?"

"Might just be a matter of - being there when I look, for a while," he admits. "And half of this getting-to-know-you thing is, you know, figuring out where we don't fit, where it'd take work to make us work, and you really can say something's too much. When it comes up."

Slowly, she shakes her head again.

"I see what you're saying, and I do appreciate it, but... if there was anything at all in the world that could get me to say 'no, that's too much, I'm out', I shouldn't have made the offer I did. If I'm going to make someone an offer of truly irrevocable loyalty, it behooves me to think very hard first about what 'irrevocable' really means and how I feel about that. As long as you are still meaningfully the person I fell in love with—and that explicitly includes scenarios where everything I saw you say and do at school was a deliberately constructed front, because I did think about that possibility—then you're not getting rid of me merely by being obnoxious about politics or leaving the toilet seat up."

Then she softens a little.

"But—that's not to say I won't be paying attention? Because in most reasonable situations it matters to you whether I feel like I'm actually romantically compatible with you, and—it matters to me too, just, I have already made my decision. If you found out that we can't stand each other's taste in ice cream or opinions about gender dynamics in the works of Tolkien, but for some reason you still wanted to own me, well, you get to do that. Because I have already decided that you get to do that even in situations where I might prefer that you didn't. Do you see what I mean?"

"...I think so? It's - you've already made that part of your vow, by offering it."

"Yes. It is still reasonable to keep an eye out for things that would negatively affect a normal sane relationship, because I bet they'd negatively affect an abnormal insane relationship even more. But if you still want me, you still get to have me, regardless."

"...okay. As long as your determination not to betray yourself doesn't mean you won't tell me if something I'm doing is hurting you... which, admittedly, seems kind of out of character now I say it aloud, but."

"It seems very clear that you want to know if things are hurting me. As it happens, I also want you to know that! So I think we'll be all right."

"Yeah. I feel silly being so insistent, because it really feels like we're on the same page about everything, but - every so often you say something that makes me think you know, if we're not on the same page, if this is just the illusion of transparency, we're going to destroy each other. It makes it all feel a bit high-stakes."

He starts gnawing on his thumbnail for a moment, then catches himself and takes his hand away from his mouth.

"No, I understand and I think you're being very reasonable! By all means take the attitude that it's very important to be sure we're successfully communicating about important things. You're right, it is."

"By all means," Peter says, smiling just a bit. "We've been saying that back and forth a lot. I suppose it's at least a weak sign we're saying things that make sense to each other."

"I would like to think I have some idea of what makes sense to you after the number of your conversations I've eavesdropped on. But of course it's—still important that the question of what makes sense to you lives in you and not me."

"Yes. And I think none of the conversations you've eavesdropped can possibly have gotten this deep into - what matters to me, what scares me. I don't often talk about it."

"I think there's still something there. Not so that I'd already know, but so that I'd understand what you mean when you explain, if you see what I mean? But—I do want to know what matters to you and what scares you. I want to know everything you want so I can help you get it."

Peter's quiet for a moment.

"Might've noticed I don't really know what I want, then," he says.

"I want to say something flippant like 'I like a challenge'—and I do—but I think more to the point... I want to help you find out?"

"Best of luck," he says. "- actually that sounds sarcastic. I really hope you can."

He laughs quietly, not sounding very happy about it. "If nothing else I've really run down the clock on picking a university."

"Stony Lake," she suggests. "No, that was flippant and selfish and very silly because I don't even know if I'll go. —the Blakes send all our kids there because it's close to home, but I have mixed feelings about being the Blake heir and might want to try something a little farther afield, when it comes time."

"Sadly I never applied there... I don't think you mentioned being heir. Does that have a fancy magical meaning, or just the regular one? Presumably there's pressure either way."

"Well, mostly just the regular one, except that I have a bunch of magical responsibilities to look forward to in addition to all the financial and political ones. I'm probably just going to shove the whole mess off onto Kallisto, though, she's better suited to it in every way."

"...ah, the Prospero gambit. Well, one of them, I guess he had a few different gambits."

"A man of many gambits. But—no, not quite, I mean to actually let her inherit what would've been mine, not just make her do all the work while I'm busy sorcering. Also she is really very unlikely to assassinate me."

"Better still, then. I don't think I'd make a very good... I was going to say Miranda because she's the one who ends up on the island with him, but she's his daughter... the closest thing to a romantic interest for Prospero is Ariel, and the relationship you've been angling for is not one in which I'm benignly enslaved to you, so possibly I should just cut the joke loose while I still have time."

She makes a hand motion as of an object falling off the side of a boat, wheeeeee-splash. "There it goes. You're safe. From, um, making a comically inapt Shakespeare reference?"

"Well, it's possible I could've salvaged the reference with work, but the work involved would've outweighed the comedic benefit, and the sunk cost fallacy is a harsh mistress. There'll be other jokes."

She should say something clever in response but instead she's just gazing adoringly at him. There are not literally hearts in her eyes but she is making a face such that in a just world there would be hearts in her eyes.

"...was that really so endearing?" he wonders. "If you keep looking at me like that I'm going to think you like me, or something."

"It was very endearing!!! And I'm very in love with you."

"You are, at that."

Peter isn't sure where to go from that statement. He doesn't actually want to make a joke about how Rosy loves him. It's... sweet, and powerful, and feels kind of sacred. But taking it at face value would send them back into the serious conversation, and he feels like he's already got more than enough to process there.

"Ed was right that I like you," he says. "In case you were wondering. You've been complimenting me, and it feels wrong not to say - you're someone I think I'd miss not knowing."

"Oh." She smiles shyly. "I'm glad."

"...do you want to watch The Princess Bride?" he asks, after a while searching for conversational topics. "It feels like all of the media we know we have in common is somehow fraught, but you keep having excellent opinions and I kind of want to see them aimed at something that's fresh in my mind. And say what you will about Ed, he's got good taste."

"I would love to!" she says, bouncing a little.

"I guess that leaves us choosing a house to watch it at. What are the merits of yours? Mine is closer by, I think, but contains my siblings, who are likely to grin at us insufferably."

"Mine usually contains my siblings but they're easy to dodge because there is such a lot of house. And they won't grin insufferably, Tia is preemptively exhausted of all dating-related subjects and Kallisto prefers to be cool and mysterious. My mother might grin insufferably, until I tell her I offered you my vassalage, and then she'll just do that raised-eyebrows 'oh boy, my daughters sure are Blakes' expression."

"Honestly that does sound preferable. I hope you don't mind that I will probably not be telling my parents that you wish to become my vassal unless given a very good reason, but I can't reasonably ask you to keep it secret from yours."

"You also shouldn't tell your parents because it would be illegal to explain how literally I meant it, but yes. I'm in the habit of telling my mother things, it tends to be a good idea."

"I'll survive any awkwardness that comes of it. I guess there might not even be any, presumably your family library had that ritual in it for a reason."

Moseying towards parking lot?

Moseying thusly!

"The reason is old politics, I'm pretty sure. Intended for the containment of defeated enemies who for whatever reason shouldn't be outright killed. Though the ritual does require the uncoerced consent of both parties so, you know, ethics points for my ancestors on that one."

"Oh, that's very good actually. Lets you be obviously merciful without worrying about getting backstabbed for it. ...which almost feels like it defeats the point, in some cosmic sense, but in the immediate sense it means fewer people die, which is pretty much just good."

"I'm very much in favour of fewer people dying! Though I'm intrigued by the notion that mercy is cosmically degraded by useful precautions. Is it because being merciful says less about you when mercy is cheaper? But then what does it say about you to invest a lot of effort and resources into making mercy cheaper for you and your descendants indefinitely into the future?"

"Yes, exactly! I don't think the mercy is being degraded, it's just - less impressive, less powerful, if it isn't letting someone go free because you trust that they're not going to stab you in the back, rather than because they can't. But it's still mercy, and it speaks well to your family to want mercy to be - easy rather than impressive. Because no matter how merciful your umpteenth-great grandparent was, they knew they wouldn't have a thousand generations of heirs just like them, and if her path is easy enough for the worst of your line to take it, if even the Jesses Favreau of the Blakes said why bother killing my enemies - that's powerful enough in itself, I think."

"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."

"I try not to 'follow drama' per se but that does sound like something I've seen the fringes of. Ellsworth always seemed like she was holding her own. ...it'll be very odd next time I see Kelly Strand at one of Lu's pizza parties or whatever. Does one bow? Kiss the hand?"

Oh these sure are some woods, aren't they. Does that mean they're getting close. There are more woods, probably.