"Hello," says Miranda.

"Well," says lecture lady. "I don't usually get visitors but I suppose it would be a bit silly to offer you cookies and tea? Come in, why don't you."

"Thank you!" In they go.

"Minor made me some things from the books you gave him," Miranda says.

"Good, good, I'm glad to hear it."

"What's your actual name?"

"Dolores. My actual as opposed to -?"

"Well, you never introduced yourself."

"What have you been calling me?" she asks.

"Lecture lady," says Miranda.

Dolores laughs.

"I was scared of you for a while because I'd conjure for the circles out for me before I took any and I wouldn't take any if there were some that looked like they could be someone meaning to keep me locked away somewhere -"

"Oh, goodness, no, I wasn't going to keep you."

"You don't let him talk."

"I like to say my piece without being interrupted, that's all."

"I wasn't scared after the first time. But not letting me talk is - predictive of - planning to hurt me. Or keep me."

"Well, now you know," says Dolores. "Does that happen frequently?"

" - three-and-a-half times so far? Enough to make me worry about it."

"You poor thing, you can't be more than sixteen!"

"I don't think I'm sixteen for another six months or so although Milliways makes counting a bit hard."

"Milliways?"

"The place where we're hanging out while Hazel's paused."

"I don't watch all of your videos."

"Well Milliways is weird and makes it hard to guess how old I am but I am almost definitely fifteen. Not that the stupid flamethrower cult cared."

Miranda squeezes his hand.

"You have to watch out for cults! They eat up ordinary decent people who are having a rough time and sometimes take years to spit them out if they ever do," says Dolores.

"Yeah, if I had an angle on dismantling it which wouldn't get me in trouble with the GCP I'd totally go for it. But I don't."

"Well, they're tricky, can't just take them apart like you would a house."

"I think Timothy'd, like, join, and then just individually convince everyone to quit? But you have to be Timothy to do that."

"And that would be a very dangerous strategy!"

"Well, maybe. He wouldn't exactly get cultified."

"A lot of people think that but long enough living on nothing but tomato soup and two hours of sleep a night will fuzz even a very determined mind."

"He would probably sneak food. Anyway I can't ask Timothy to break up a random cult in Canada with like twenty members, he is doing things that are higher-priority and he'd miss his boyfriend."

"And there's not much the law can do if they all say they prefer to eat nothing but tomato soup. Self-determination, they call it, as though that's what's going on in there."