"I'm the same age as you, you know. If you cared to assume winged goblin form, I could show you a thing or two."

Dolph realized that she was indeed a fine figure of a goblin girl. He was tempted to do just that: become a winged goblin, and see what she looked like then. "How about showing me your panties?" he asked.

She kicked him on the ribs. "Those aren't on the list for showing. Only if you wanted to marry me."

"But I already have two Betrothees!" he protested.

"I was being facetious," she said. "Even though there is no boy of my kind. I was just making the point that age is no barrier to love. We're all children, according to the Adult Conspiracy, but we can love."

"Oh. I guess so." The Adult Conspiracy was the bane of his life, with its ridiculous tenets. "But Jenny Elf and Gwendolyn Goblin and Che Centaur don't—"

"They love their families, and maybe each other. Not all love relates to the stork, you know."

Dolph hadn't known, but let it pass. "So maybe they care about each other. But why would that make it so hard for Che to decide what to do?" "I don't know. That's what we're trying to figure out. If you don't marry Electra, she dies. Could there be something like that with Gwendolyn Goblin?"

"Did she seem ill to you?"

"No, she seemed perfectly healthy. And nice. I could see how well both Che and Jenny liked her. But there must be something odd about her, because that's the first time Godiva ever let me meet her. I'm sure we could have been friends, if we had met earlier."

"Well, as you said, your wings—"

"But Che has wings!" she said sharply.

"That's right! So it couldn't be the wings. Maybe it's that he's male?"

"Male? How could a male be better than a female?"

"Well, Electra had to be kissed awake by a prince. Maybe Gwendolyn Goblin has to have a male companion."

"But I'm sure there are plenty of male goblins who could have been her playmate."

"Would any of them have been as nice as Che?"

"Well, you don't expect a goblin male to be nice," she said reasonably. "All the niceness is in the females."

"So if she wanted a nice companion male, it couldn't be a goblin," he said. "Still, there must have been some other companion they could have gotten that wouldn't bring the winged monsters down to besiege their mountain. Why didn't they look for one of those?"

"That's the mystery," she agreed. "Or half of it. Why did they take Che—and why can't he make up his mind about it? All we know is that maybe it's like you and Electra in some devious way."