"Rabka."

"And the baby -"

"Cathei."

"I have a bunch of little sisters, I wouldn't have wanted them to - my place she can run around as much as she wants. Once she's a toddler and when she's not a teapot, I mean - did someone put you two through a magic on purpose -"

"I did. Don't get me pregnant and then try to sell my kid, I go totally nuts if you do that."

" - fuck. I - no. I won't do that. I actually just - I have a collection of embroidered musical instruments and I thought you'd like it, that's all, there's a spare room for you and your daughter -"

"Ooh. I will fit in real nice with a collection of embroidered musical instruments."

"I thought so too! Can I hold Cathei - can be 'no' -"

"Go for it." Baby bundle.

Snuggle! "I can let her go - not out of pocket, they keep jacking up the price for that, but I can set aside the money every month and free her in a year or so. ...I could possibly have haggled for you and then been able to afford to free her right now but I found the idea of arguing exactly how much you were worth really unappealing and it's not like she'll know..."

"Awww."

"Kids shouldn't -" sigh. "No one should but that's harder to fix, or so I am told by the people who are supposed to be doing it. - I'm assuming you'd rather her, if I've the money for one..."

Nod.

"So. I can give you the money every month to hold on to until there's enough." He bounces the baby. "And then we can get her into school and so on - the being a teapot shouldn't interfere too much -"

"She usually isn't a teapot. Just a few days a month."

"Then it'll be fine, yeah. What else will the two of you need -"

"Baby stuff in general. Food for me."

"If I just give you money for it can you go get whatever you need -"

"I think that's allowed, yeah."

"Okay. This way."

She follows him.

It's a big family house with an internal courtyard and four different entrances. One of the side ones is his; he keeps odd hours. He lets them in. There's a bedroom and a music room; in the courtyard there are kids playing something like tag but with pikes. 

Malare sits down. "I, uh, haven't done this before, my sister would have murdered me and I didn't have the means to support someone anyway and, like, I'm not going to hurt you even if you get out of line, and so I'm kind of just setting myself up for things to go badly. But - I think you'll like it here? And if not we'll figure something out, we own a significant chunk of Ivirne, you could live out there..."

"...your sister would have you murdered?"

"- two of them, for different reasons. One of them is an abolitionist who's been running around setting plantations on fire when she's not smuggling people out - no one knows that it's our sister, that's a secret, don't write a song about it or anything - and then my older sister is apparently not an abolitionist but was pretending for a while."

"I will not write a song about your sister the arsonist."