"Politics," Fortescue agrees wryly. "What would we do without it?"

Other than sleep better at night, at least figuratively speaking. She shrugs.

"There's an elven faction in my world, the Inveterates, that use humans in a similar way. Though it's mostly through mind control, via magic. It sometimes damages the short-term memory, in the most severe cases, but the side effects are otherwise minimal. Most of their human soldiers in the war are used in this fashion."