This isn’t in line with the other Luke/Doomsday stuff, coming, probably, after all that, but it was poking at my brain.

“I’m noticing,” Luke looked around the lunch hall, “a lot of familiar features.”

Cynara grinned back at him, clearly reading at least the subtext he’d meant and maybe some other text as well. “Of course. Where did you think I was getting my students?”

“I…” He coughed. “Well, you’re well known.” He hadn’t done enough research by half, had he?

“‘Oh, they’re Boom, good people to trust with your kids’ educations?'” She chuckled. “We’re on three generations now, Luke, of people having kids after school so they had children they didn’t have to give to Addergoole.”

“It’s not like we hold on to our students forever.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. He flapped his wings back at her.

She changed the subject without conceding or pressing her point. “The one you were looking at? The horned blonde? Not a Boom kid – nor Forest Manor, or any of our other close family.” She smirked. “I assume you’d know if they were yours.”

Luke coughed. “Aelfgar had a lot of children.”

“Yes, he did. And a lot of them went to Addergoole.” She flicked her fingers in the direction of the teenager. “That one’s grandmother had three more kids after school.”

She saw it sink in, Luke assumed, because she smirked at him in a manner far too much like her former Mentor.

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