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distinctly peeved

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No, I will not relent. I am not going up to the Manor to watch Alessio shackle himself to a sixteen-year-old. If I knew Marco and Miss Ducas any better I might have relented, but I told Dracaena I refuse to bless anything that Alessio and Yvon do that involves girls half their age, blatant ambition, the attempt to be something they aren't (particularly when it is clearly being done as a sop to Nicodemo's fantasy of respectability) and the desire to make one another crazier than they already are. Indeed I told Yvon in August that if he did marry the Rosier girl, I would cut him until she was thirty or left him, whichever came first.

I don't care what you think about it, Julian. There is a reason I put you down on the schedule to work today. And if I said this to you directly it would not be in so many words.

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contemplative

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I hate executions, even when the condemned is utterly deserving.

These people were far more stupid than malicious.

Requiescat in pace, John Crockford.
Requiescat in pace, Emma Jacobi.

She wrote letters, a few. The War Bureau will pick them apart and then, perhaps, they'll be sent to the addressees.

He hadn't spoken since he learned his daughter went into Dracaena's service.

They were communists, and they acknowledged no God, but I shall pray they receive Christ's mercy.

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worried

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Well, Abraxas is as useful as he ever is, asking for leave so soon; I'm sure that Forrester did 90% of the work. He simply isn't the man he used to be, even ten years ago. I've no idea what that son of his has gone and done now, but I do agree that Dracaena needn't be making any more outlaws, so I'll give him his leave and send the Longbottom boy down there with Forrester to keep an eye on Flint. If someone's poisoned the Hogwarts manticore and Barlowe's been murdered, then really, that's either a crime or a War Bureau problem--it's not the business of Mysteries.

Ailise Kyteler, though--that makes a sort of sense, if Aisling's as disloyal as Ned thinks she is. I shall tell Ned and see what he has to say about this. Ned's people came and checked out the Lockhart girl's corpse, but they couldn't tell me anything I couldn't have guessed. They spoke to Travers as well. My God, what a mess that poor child is.

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amused

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My goodness, Julian and St John are coming home for an evening.

And here I was thinking that I was going to have to go to Tintagel myself and petition Dracaena to spare them for just a day or two before le petit Claudien has to go off to school.

Though it would probably be good for Claudien to be taken to the Manor, even though he doesn't want to go. He will need to get used to other children again when he goes to school, and it would be better if he could get used to his cousins again first.

And I must confess to a certain curiosity to see what Dracaena's done with the place.

I am surprised that they are not staying in Londinium, my son and his particular friend. How very amusing that Ned Kyteler and Lavinia Scalara have finally taken an interest in people their own age.