"I don't object that you want me to stay I'm objecting that even though we've been talking about the subject for quite a while now I'm still not entirely sure that that's in fact what you want! Can you be more direct!"

"Yes please stay."

"Thank you. Sorry. I know it's - I know it's a safety thing."

Nod.

"It's why Amait and I are fighting, because if I'd inherited - well. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you."

She leaves.

Aya finishes her food and goes to her room to draw.

No one bothers her!

Amait goes to find her brother. 

He is playing magic instruments with Rabka.

Rabka looks up from the sheet music but continues to pretend she has a bow in her hand for the violin.

She can wait out the song.

And soon the song is over and she stops pretending she is holding a bow.

"Rabka, right? it's nice to meet you."

"Yes, that's me, hi."

"If you sign over their titles to me I can get the bill through," she says to Malare. "Which is both valuable in its own right and gives me a bit more leverage for vote-wrangling later - doesn't have to be notarized in-family -"

"I'm saving up to let them go, will this interfere with that?"

"I mean, if I wanted to obstruct that, yes, but you can't free them without my approval anyway. I wrote my accountant yesterday, I can front you the cost of freeing them and then you can pay me back. But after the vote."

"How long until the vote -"

"Probably this week.'

"And then there won't be another, equally important vote -"

"There will. But you said you'd free them."

"As long as we're clear on that, I guess."