Her unfounded faith in his family might have been endearing had it not been so inconvenient to his purposes at the moment. "They clearly will not," he contended. Endymion was supposed to have already married someone, by Oz's reckoning, and he hadn't so much as shown a significant interest in anyone other than veela. Don Juan, on the other hand, was interested in everyone with a beating heart (and Oz might not have put it past him to be interested in a few humanoids without a beating heart if the opportunity arose). He might have any number of children, but clearly none of them would ever be Dempseys. When it came to sisters Oz had always supposed Christabel would eventually marry, but when she had she had chosen someone useless — even before he'd ended up dead. Which left Porphyria (ha), Shallott (ha), and Lycoris. Lycoris was, perhaps, their only real hope — but she had terrible taste in prospective partners. He ought to know; he'd seen the way she made eyes at Locke.

"It doesn't even have to live with us," he offered; a compromise. "I'm sure my mother would be glad to take it off our hands once it's born."

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