[ It'd be easy to read an excess of calculation into her words. Noble declarations to mask some more selfish motive beneath it all, or spoken to justify herself and her means and her actions to him, to the mages of Riftwatch in general.

But it would be that: his own reading. Her tone rings clear. And besides all that-- ]

I'd made a home, in my retirement, [ he says, to use her word. ] A humbler one than I imagine yours to be, and that of your father's, but a home still. More than I'd had since I was a child.

I came out of that retirement because it was made clear that as long as there is compromise, so long as they view us as less, it's a falsehood. To be taken from you or I at any moment.