Ozymandias blinked at her and frowned. She knew Daphnel didn't love her. She wasn't naive, then — she was settling. This was by far the worse option of the two. If she had been ignorant of what Oz suspected to be the nature of the arrangement then all he'd have needed to do would be to tell her — which he supposed he'd more or less already done. (This level of forthcomingness was out of character for him, and he might have stopped to question it had he not been entirely distracted by the matter at hand). If she had determined to settle, though, the task was to talk her out of it — and given her general stubbornness that was much easier said than done. Could he even talk her out of it? Now that the engagement had been announced it would have ruined her to break it off, no doubt. Still, "ruined" while happily nestled at home amongst her siblings was better than trapped in a fraught marriage, in his opinion. Given that she had gotten herself into this predicament in the first place, however, it was probable that she didn't share that particular opinion.

Endymion would have been useful here, maybe — if she was inclined to take Endymion seriously. Though the irony of considering imploring Endymion to help talk Christabel out of a bad match when Ozymandias had (as far as Endymion knew) rebuffed his own efforts to do the same thing years prior was not lost on him. Dymion would probably consider that an admission of defeat on Oz's part, which, pettily, Oz was not inclined to grant him. Still — if it meant saving Christabel from her poor decisions, perhaps he'd have to set his pride aside and try.

"You don't have to marry him," he replied under his breath. He wished they were in a slightly more private area of the party, but he couldn't think of a way to navigate them to one inconspicuously — and anyway, if Daphnel saw the two of them leaving he might follow after them, which was the last thing Oz wanted. "If I bribed him we could dissolve this quietly."

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