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Hector had a corner booth all to himself. He could see Prince Meriwether sleeping in the center of the plane. The man must have been tired, because it was barely past midday. They’d set out almost as soon as Hector agreed to go with them.

‘Hey, when’s your birthday?’

Hector blinked at the sudden inquiry. ‘Uh... why?’

‘Just curious,’ said Garovel. ‘It’s gotta be soon, right? Or did I already miss it?’

‘No, ah... it’s next month, actually.’

‘Aha. What day?’

‘The twenty-fifth.’

‘You’ll turn seventeen, right?’

‘Y-yeah...?’

‘I guess it’s a good time to bring up the topic of aging.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, do you want me to stop your body from aging physically?’

His eyes widened. ‘Uh...’

‘I can keep you eternally youthful, is what I’m saying.’

‘I... uh... hell, I don’t know.’

‘Personally, I think you should at least wait until your late twenties before having me press the pause button, but I figured I should ask in case you really like being a teenager.’

A beat passed, and Hector eyed Garovel. ‘Why the FUCK would I like being a teenager?’

The reaper snorted a laugh. ‘Well. I don’t know. You’d get to feel young. And. Spritely?’

‘Ugh. Screw that. Now that I think about it, uh... I think I’d rather age normally until I’m, like, fifty or something.’

‘Really? Well, we’ll see how you feel in a few years.’

‘Hmm.’

‘That’s actually a pretty common sentiment, though. You’d think more servants would want to be eternally young, but as it turns out, most sixty-year-olds don’t want strangers treating them like they’re twenty-year-olds.’

‘Choosing to be eternally young seems kind of... douchey.’

Garovel laughed again. ‘Maybe it is.’

‘How the hell do you prevent aging, anyway?’

‘Magical reaper juice.’

‘...Ew.’

‘Nah, it’s just a kind of smaller-scale extension of the ability to regenerate your body. I actually don’t know the exact reason why it works, because no one knows what causes aging in the first place. There are lots of interesting theories about it, though!’

‘Please, no--’

‘There’s one theory that aging is caused by reproductive hormones that promote growth early in life but end up driving the body into decline later on, because they’re still trying to maintain reproduction despite it no longer being possible. There’s another theory that it’s selected genetically, like a literal “biological clock” embedded into your DNA. Then there’s the one regarding the progressive shortening of telomeres--’

‘Alright, alright, I get it. Shit is complicated.’

‘It is. By the way, Lynn is staring at you.’