"Likely no, if that was the case," Morgana said, sounding apologetic. "I didn't realise you were doing this for someone else. The dwarves are not impossible, but for the Empire? I think they would want more than your Empire was willing to pay." A thought crossed her mind, but she stayed silent. "And what would the Empire want of the Erins, d'you think? We have nothing like the dwarves build."

"It's the way academia works," Cara explained. "You love doing something that no ordinary person would pay you to do, you find a very wealthy benefactor. In my case, the University lets me do whatever I like in exchange for lecturing little rich boys, but I don't own my work. I don't..." She shook her head. "I'm not sure about the Erins. It's beautiful, but it doesn't really seem to be a place that has much. Apart from undeveloped land, really. I don't know what the Empire would want, except maybe to build."

"So says my sister, but then she says it wouldn't be worth it to them, we are so far away and isolated. We are on the way to nowhere and are nothing of ourselves, so--" She shrugged, on instinct, but then remembered that Cara would not see it.

"But you are something," Cara replied. "You have your fayerie. We don't have that."

"Save that fayerie cannot be stuffed into a crate and loaded onto a ship," she said. "We can, of course."

Cara nodded soberly. "I would hope the empire wouldn't resort to slavery. But..."

"But if hopes and wishes were eels and fishes, no one would go to bed hungry," Morgana agreed, with a sigh. Again she gave Cara one of those long, curious looks. "They have already been here," she said, cautiously, not sure on which side of the argument Cara might fall.

"And? Cara asked. "What was your impression of them?"

Morgana went quiet, thinking back. "The fact that they came without soldiers or weapons means they think we can be reasoned with."

"Well, they very much like their politics," Cara agreed. "They will always negotiate for something more beneficial to them if they an do it by negotiation. They'll do that before they declare war."