He makes the announcement to various interested people that he will be looking for a bride. Just saying it makes him feel sick. Edarial manages to keep it together long enough to give a list of the qualities he's looking for before he flees. He says he's busy, no one will look twice at him being curt and disappearing to get work done. So no one comes after him when he hides in his room and locks the door.
Face buried in his pillow, he realizes that there's no way he can be personable to his - whatever they are. Potential brides, suitors - whatever, he doesn't care. He'll hire someone to vet them, so he doesn't have to torture himself dealing with women trying to persuade him to marry them.
She doesn't get her pruning done fast enough.
"Maybe you didn't get the notice, but I'm here because he had my familiar kidnapped and won't get him back until after the wedding. I didn't wake up one morning and say to myself what say I marry a total stranger."
"I imagine he does know where my cat is," says Iobel. "I really don't think asking nicely is the sort of thing that will help, though knock yourself out if you want to try it. I got as far as finding where they were hiding him, the other day, and I got my head slammed into the floor a few times by the guards for my trouble, and then they moved him I know not where, and if I annoy the wrong person the wrong amount the implied threat is unmaking."
"Do you want to read his proposal?" asks Iobel, plucking the letter from the bedside table. "Here, read that in the context of me trapped here, guarded night and day, cat kidnapped."
"My cat," Iobel adds, "was poisoned when I was packing to leave the country because I didn't like being ordered here, and they took him when I brought him to the fountain."
"Yes. I found him the first night, knocked out two guards on my way, but they said they were going to move him after that."
"Yes. I know. Do you think you can get me my cat? Because if you can't I still have to get married."
"I could turn you invisible. I was working on something to walk through walls but I didn't get it finished in time."