"Check the tide on my beach?"

It transpires that Beach is paused.

"That's good, means no one is dying while a Vala is acquired."

"It's not the time of year when people would be dying in the greatest numbers, but yeah, that's good."

"It's a time-of-year thing?"

"Not strictly, people can die of old age in any season, but it's commonest the winter before we turn ten."

"Ugh. I'm glad you got out."

"Thanks."

"Six including Minor or six others?" he asks Cam.

"Not including Minor, I assume you already have a character assessment of Minor."

"Minor killed someone to get home to warn us," he tells Ambela quietly.

"- is he all right, was the person his summoner -"

"Person is now a fairy and safe at home with his wife and not planning to press charges."

"I don't think Minor's all right exactly but he's going to be..."

"Does he need anything?"

"Uh, I did not actually ask the questions relevant to establishing whether he was - responsible enough about the decision - because it didn't seem like an important answer to have right that second but it'll be important at some point."

Nod.

"You might be a good person to do that, if you wanted to."

"Especially if he might want coaching on how to tell Miranda."

"I bet he would greatly appreciate coaching on how to tell Miranda."

"I'll go find him. It's lovely to meet you, Tireh."

And she goes looking for Minor.

Flopped on a couch reading. "Hi."

"Hello. How are you doing?"

" - not as bad as the summons where the building'd blown up, actually. But then at least there was, like, 'go to med school' as an obvious way of avoiding that situation in future..."

"This time you're already working on changing the conditions that made it less than astonishing, outlier behavior on the summoner's part."

"If it gets out I'll set all that work back by a ton."