Something you will learn quickly, if you have not already, Lucius: There is very little that I fear, nothing that I fear enough to silence myself when integrity demands that I speak.

As one aristocrat to another, one father to another -- you must not doubt that the Admiral would have joined us if he did not believe me capable of graduating you. I have seen those of noble birth commit great wrongs and make strangers of themselves to the populations that held them up, and I have also seen the most just of them, slew by the bayonets of a mass enraged at what evils their comrades had done on their watch. I have seen others accede change, become equals and brethren, in turn preserving a mighty tradition whilst safeguarding the futures of their offspring with industry, with new blood, with conviction. I have seen still more crumble, unable to find purchase in the new world that emerges without need of them. Just as it happened in my lifetime, it has already begun to happen in yours.

It is nature, whether magic is involved or not, for things to always change. You are here to change, and to learn what you must in order to help your family survive in the new world that is to come -- one that will not rise up to coddle you if you invoke the names of your ancestors.