"Tears stop existing after you go through them. If you went back and forth before coming through that would be conclusive."

"I did not, but I think I could find the place I walked through again. What happens if it was a tear?"

"Then I can make you a new gate, I know how. But it'll take a while to settle. You can safely take food from Yellow now, he's already your vassal."

"Fairy food's safe for me. Well, safe enough, it'd be astronomically unusual for someone to track down that weak and distant of food claim on something I found foraging. It's you who might run out and need to eat things you normally shouldn't."

Another nod. "And it's safe if the food is obviously his, or if he feeds it to me? He was trying to feed me one of the things you made, would that have made me your vassal?"

"If he feeds it to you. The dewdrop might have given me a weaker claim, which would have been really inconvenient if it held, because I was forbidden to speak my name and it would have had to be food on my end, name on yours."

"That would have been inconvenient. All right. Is there any danger in checking on the place I entered right now?"

"You might be accosted by another fairy," Promise says, "or meet an environmental hazard. Will you ask Yellow to tell me his name?"

"... I can, but what do you plan to do after?"

"I'm better at phrasing orders than you are. And if I have his name he can't hurt me. I don't need him for anything, I'm not going to keep him."

"Do I have your permission to get a lie detection from you on that via him before I give you his name?"

"...A lie detection? You already told him to tell you if I lied."

"I mean, yes, but - I don't expect he actually knows if you'd be lying about what you'd do with him or not, that was more in the way of 'are you lying about how the world works.' So, I'd want to confirm that that specific thing is definitely true."

"How?"

"Ordering him to give you a specific order that we work out beforehand, to make sure that you're not lying about that specific thing, and then clearing all of your orders again. He's an awful person, but I just met you ten minutes ago, I don't know what would happen five minutes after I left when you're free to tell him to jump off a cliff, or gouge his own eyes out. I'd fall in your favor in the 'which one of you is allowed to give the other orders' game, but I'd rather not play it at all if it's going to lead to a worse situation than what I've already got in front of me."

"I could think of situations that could come up where I'd need a vassal - or where I'd need a master - and then I'd come get Yellow sooner than find someone else, but I'm not in such a situation now and don't plan to get entangled in one if I can avoid it. You can have Yellow order me not to lie to you for a minute."

"All right." She looks at Yellow. "Give Promise the following order: 'For the next minute, you will not lie to Callida.'"

"That phrasing doesn't work, it has to be 'don't', not 'will not'." (Yellow is silent, presumably because there was not an order after 'the following order'.)

"... Ah, okay." She corrects the phrasing to the proper one, restating the order correctly.

"All right then, thanks. Sorry. Yellow, tell her your name."

"You fed him, unless you share his name or someone makes you do so it doesn't add anything to how much your vassal he is."