“And are all women fairy princesses?”
“They ought to be sometime to some man who knows how to be a fairy prince.”
“Don’t you think every man could play that part to the right sort of princess?”
“Yes, I do. Only not if he had gone bad, which is a man’s way of growing up. Only the kind that don’t grow up can be fairy princes.”
“Have we grown up, then, Wrexham and Forsyth and I?”
Aryenis did not reflect this time. She said straight off without any previous consideration:
“No. You have none of you grown up, not even Forsyth, though I think he likes to pretend that he has. As for you, Harilek, you will never grow up, however long you live.”
“How can you tell whether men have grown up—Shahzadi?”
“I like it when you call me Shahzadi; it sounds nice. How do I tell when men are grown up? Oh, in lots of ways. Whether they like toys is one thing.”
“What do you call ‘toys’?”