"Say you're fifty or something," he suggested without hesitation. "Most people won't know the difference."

Goneril laughed. "What? Really?" she asked. "Do you think that would work?"

"Maybe. I'm sure no one can tell tallfolk age any better'n I can. You might get away with it if no one crossed you too close." He grinned at her. "You'll never get around the yellow hair, though."

Goneril frowned. "What's wrong with the yellow hair?" she asked, touching her hair self-consciously. "Just...that it's different? I haven't seen anyone with yellow hair here...Fiona's is white, and Lady Dierdre's is sort of...strawberry blond, we call it at home."

"Yellow hair's a tallfolk thing," he said. "Yellow for Lugh. Please let's not get started over who actually made tallfolk; that's just what the story says. And Queen Fiona has white hair because sometimes halfling babies are white. Spider was a white halfling. She was self-conscious because it looked like she had no eyebrows."

Goneril went still for a moment. "Fiona...Fiona's a halfling?" she asked. "That means...she's part human? I thought...no one told me that."

He blinked in surprise. "I would assume. Obviously she's half-something and there's nothing much else it could be but human, unless they got something up north I never heard of."

Goneril's eyes lit up. "But if the Queen is half-human, that means...there must be humans in the north, doesn't it? Maybe they're not so...Maybe it would be all right?" she asked hopefully.

"I dunno," he said, looking doubtful. "There's . . . if they're anything like us, there's different rules for royalty."

"But Faolin's the Queensman," Goneril pointed out. "That's...if Fiona's half-human, she can tell people to accept it."