Chapter 8 No one responded.

The girl opened her mouth to speak, but her father beat her to the punch. "Yes, my lord. She–"

"With respect," I cut him off. "I wasn't talking to you." I turned away from the deathly pale man back to his daughter. "Did you cause that?" I repeated my question.

She swallowed nervously, her hands shaking as she said, "Y-yes, my lord. I did that accidentally when I was four. I…I also burned the table at the same time." she added shyly.

"She has much better control now!" her mother hurriedly added. "She can even–"

"Once more, respectfully, I'm not talking to you. Could you please give me and your daughter a moment alone, please?" I broke in, looking pointedly at both of her parents. If they were going to chime in every five seconds, this conversation wasn't going to get anywhere. There were things I needed to ask and things I needed to say before I even considered adding this girl – her name was Yubelluna if I heard her mother correctly – to my peerage.

The girl's parents fled the room as if a dragon had suddenly appeared within it, leaving their daughter to look frantically at their backs, before turning back to me with wide eyes.

"Yubelluna, right?" I asked.

She nodded, then her eyes shot wider and she said, "Yes, my lord." She bowed, then quickly straightened her back again, a look of panic on her face.

I sighed and started rubbing my head. "Please just sit down. I'm not going to lash out at you for not saying or doing the right thing. Forget that my last name is Phenex, and just talk to me."

Yubelluna looked uncertainly between Clarissa and I, but when Clarissa offered no reaction whatsoever, she slowly sat down in the wooden chair across from us.

"Now, I would guess your parents are the ones who wrote the letter I received?" I said.

"Yes, my lord."

"Then I guess my biggest question is: Do you even want to join my peerage?"

Yubelluna's head tilted to the side in confusion. "I don't understand, my lord."

I took a deep breath. She is a twelve year old. An actual twelve year old. I pointedly reminded myself internally. It isn't her fault that she needs everything spelled out to her. Be patient, Riser.

"Joining my peerage would mean you would become subservient to me. You would serve me. I would do everything in my power to treat you fairly, but you have no guarantees of that. And despite the fact that we don't publicize it, there are several lords who exploit the members of their peerage in various ways."

"My lord, I do not believe that is the correct direction to take this conversation if you wish to recruit her." Clarissa said chidingly.

"Am I wrong?"

"You are not, my lord."

"Then I'm going to make sure she knows what she's getting into." I said, and Clarissa seemed to accept my words.

Turning back to Yubelluna, who had watched our exchange in silence, I said, "Your parents seem to want you to be in my peerage. Do you want to be in my peerage?"

Yubelluna swallowed again. A blind man could see she was nervous.

"Yes, my lord. I want to be in your peerage."

"Why?"

Yubelluna's face went blank at my question. "I…I don't understand, my lord."

"Why do you want to be in my peerage?"

"I…I want to serve you."

I couldn't help it, I audibly sighed. "Please don't lie to me again. You have no idea who I am. You hadn't met me before today. There is no way you want to serve me. Now why do you want to join my peerage?"

Once more, Yubelluna looked at Clarissa, but the witch didn't so much as twitch. The girl turned back to me, and took a deep breath, seeming to gather her courage. "I want to be strong." she said hurriedly. When I didn't say anything, she kept going. "I…I don't like being weak. The strong devils are trying to force us out of our home. We can't stand up to them, so mom says we have a few months before they take everything. The strong devils will do whatever they want with us. I don't like that. Dad said if a peerage took me I could be important – that I could be strong. I want to be able to stop people from taking things from me."

Now she had my attention. She was actually talking to me, not reading from a list of predetermined responses she'd practiced with her mother.

"Was I the first lord your parents sent a letter to? Your answer won't change anything, I'm just curious." I said, trying to be reassuring, because I really just wanted to know how desperate her parents were.

Yubelluna shook her head. "I don't know how many they tried. We've…we've been selling things to pay for the letters. No one responded. Only you."

That explained a lot. Both with how the letter was paid for and why her parents were acting like zealots who would fall on their swords if I told them to. They wanted to give their daughter a better life than whatever was waiting for them, so they were spending their last months of freedom to try and get her into a peerage.

I wasn't going to lie, their lives sounded rough, and I would probably do something to help them out regardless of how things went, but a sob story wasn't reason enough for me to let this girl into my peerage. There were some incredibly powerful people in this world that I remembered from my first life. I didn't have a cohesive list of everyone I wanted in my peerage, but I did have a general outline of potential choices. The name 'Yubelluna' wasn't on it. That said, I was here anyway, so I figured I may as well dot my 'i's and cross my 't's.