"Oh, he's had his share, in his time," Lanaya chuckled softly as she accepted her bowl. "He's the only member of the flock who leaves for such long periods, but when he comes home he likes to be pampered."

Gale hooted softly and she glanced up with a smile. "Yes, yes, I'm sure we'll have enough for you to have a taste."

"Oi, a little credit here," Hana protested mildly, looking between them both. "C'mon, Gracie, you really think I'd let him get himself killed?"

Granted, there was a non-zero chance they would both do something stupid, but she thought the odds shifted in their favor if they remembered to check each other.

The weight fell from her shoulders, and her breath staggered to a halt in her chest. She just stared down at the open collar for a few moments, unable to see anything else.

She managed to lift her eyes when Valor moved back in front of her, but she could do little except stare at him either. She heard the words, even felt her mouth start to twitch up into a hint of a smile.

"Flatterer," she accused, though the amused bite to her tone that had become her default with him was missing.

She glanced down at the collar again, stared--and then in a burst of motion bent to pick it up, turned and flung it as hard as she could against the wall of the brothel. The thin gold hit stone with an oddly high-pitched clank, and it clattered back to the ground, dented and twisted.

Ka'lei bit out a sound that was caught between a laugh and a sob. "Fuck you," she snarled at the open, broken collar in Essyrni. "Never again." She swallowed, then repeated it in Common, a little softer, "Never again..."

She took a breath, then fluffed her wings, straightened her shoulders, and turned to face Valor again. "So. Well. Ah--thanks." She swallowed, eyes suspiciously bright, but was clearly working to slide back into the sharp, dry personality she wore like a protective cloak.

"If their wings work the same way yours do, I imagine so," she agreed thoughtfully. Without feathers, Ein tended to need to do a lot more actual flapping than she did.

She glanced down at Vander and rubbed his head. "Maybe I should take him," she murmured slowly. "Less weight for your wings, mine are better built for gliding anyway..."

"Idris." Chuckling and rolling her eyes, Adri put her hand on his arm to draw his attention back to the present moment. "I meant you can ask all the appropriate questions about product quality and pricing and whatnot--y'know, the stuff that you're exceptionally good at? That sort of business stuff?"

She smiled crookedly at him, trying to nudge him back toward a sense of lightness. "I can probably get what I need to know just from watching and listening--it's how I do most of my part of things anyway. Plus, I'd have no idea how to assess the quality of precious stones."

Krysta rolled her eyes. Maybe --probably--she should have been more worried about irritating a newly-magical creature many hundreds of times her own size, but somehow after even their relatively brief acquaintance she was finding it difficult to be properly wary of him. He was just...rather like a cub, in an odd way. Clearly unused to the world, or at least the version of it he now inhabited.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know much about how...your type of magic should or would work, but..." She shrugged. "I'm sure someone back home might have an idea. Though telling them about you might be...err, complicated. Maybe I should just check the library..."

"I mean, the rebels probably won't want to fight either," Kiara noted pointedly. "They might have...I dunno, escape routes. Some sort of plan in place to get the refugees over the border before the mercs close in."

---

"Well...I mean, ideally we'll be able to keep you lot safe from these stupid backward laws, so..." Kiara shrugged. "Go for it, I guess?" She glanced at Grav for confirmation.

Lanaya was quiet a moment longer, than gave herself a little shake and smiled at him faintly. "Of course. Of course, you're right. Hero will be back. We can wait another week or so for him..."

They could deal with what happened next then. Grimr obviously didn't want to talk about it, and she didn't want to push the matter until she had to.

Hana arched an eyebrow. "What does a mostly social call entail?" she asked warily, easily ducking under Gracia's swat to Thrax's head so she could pop up on the captain's other side.

"Ah, right." She chuckled a bit and took a few steps back so she had room to spread her wings. "So, it's this thing some of us do, back home. Before Rosamund did whatever she did to my wings, they weren't strong enough for proper flight--so I'd have to catch air currents to get any real distance."

She tipped her head, eyeing the height of the spire, feeling the chill of the air around them, running half a dozen calculations as she did. "Warm air rises. So if we can just catch a warm current, we should be able to get up there."

A small, self-satisfied smirk started to curl its way across her face. "What makes me the expert?" she repeated, wings buzzing into a brighter glow for just a moment. "Gee, it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I am literally made of magic. Like my entire species. Nooooo, that couldn't possibly be it, could it?"

"Yes. Those rebels." She sighed. "I know it's kind of mad, but...what choice do we really have right now?"

---

Kiara frowned, though the expression was more confusion this time than anything else. "Wait wait wait—what do you mean the remainder of your life?"

Lanaya jerked get attention away from her grimoire and to her apprentice. "I—"

She exhaled slowly. "I...have another friend. Another member of my flock, but he doesn't live here with the rest of us. I asked him about your...condition soon after you arrived. I'd hoped to have heard back from him about something, but..."

She sighed, her shoulders slumping a bit. "I'm...sorry, Grimr. I'm worried that—that I won't be able to help you. That it might be better if..."

She couldn't even say it. She didn't want to send him away—for either of their sakes.

"Silent as the grave, us two," Hana agreed, still laughing a bit herself. She tried to sober herself and straightened up a bit. Snapping into a quick, only slightly sarcastic salute, she said, "Percy told us you needed us—reporting for final duties, captain!"

Nani's brow furrowed as she stared up at the spire, considering. Calculating.

"...Island hopping."

She looked at Ein, starting to smile a bit. "We can do this. We treat it like island hopping—I'll teach you."

She glanced down at Vander, then back up. "You'll have to carry the dog though."

Krysta rolled her eyes theatrically. "Stars, where do you get this stuff?" she huffed, more to herself than to Ivan.

Were there really mortals who thought this? Well—obviously there must be. Ivan didn't sound like he was spouting it off the top of his head. And he'd said something about being "taught".

She shrugged and shook her head. "Well. I suppose it doesn't really matter if you listen to me or not—it won't change the way the world works. Magic just is."

Kiara sighed and shook her head wistfully. "I miss lying," she muttered.

Drumming her fingers on Kit's scales, she started thinking aloud, "We need some sort of...backup. The refugees can't defend themselves on their own, once the mercs..."

The idea occurred to both her and Kit at the same time. They both groaned. "We have to find the rebels."

---

She nodded, starting to climb to her feet. "Regardless, the lot of you should be ready to move," she said to Beatrix and Lowell. "The mercs in our world haven't been called off--they're supposed to be setting the fires tonight..."

She trailed off and glanced around, realizing that in all the world-hopping and imprisonment, she'd quite lost track of time. And--

She looked at Grav. "You doing okay? You and Dan have been awake at the same time for a while now--can you keep it up?"

Lanaya smiled fondly at him and reached over to lay a hand on his shoulder for a moment. "Me too. I'm sure it will be lovely."

She moved to tuck her grimoire away back in the small chest near her sleeping pad, then hesitated. She stared at the cover of the book, head tilted slightly to one side.

There was nothing in the tome that would help him. She knew that. She'd searched it cover to cover a dozen times now. She didn't know what to do.

And she didn't know how to tell him. In such a relatively short time, the boy had become a member of her flock--and a unique member at that, in more ways than one. Her birds often referred to her as "sister", but with Grimr... She'd never really thought of herself as particularly maternal, but she didn't know how else to qualify the protectiveness she felt for him.

"Hey, River kept trying to pawn those twins off on me, so either parenting makes you so exhausted you lose any sense of judgement, or someone trusts us," she laughed as they headed below decks to meet the captain.

Nani was speechless for several moments, just staring up the improbable--impossible--sight before them.

"How...?" She shook her head slowly. "I mean, just...how?"