“Agreed,” Iannis said. “We have offered to let him go if he promised to stop encouraging his followers to engage in mass murder, but he rejected the deal without hesitation. Exile may be the only option, though that is not likely to appease his supporters.”

“Yeah, well, as far as I’m concerned, his followers should be tossed into jail or exiled right along with him,” I grumbled. Normally, I didn’t believe people should be punished just for having contrary beliefs, but I was getting pretty fed up with the pro-Resistance humans.

Noria is a pro-Resistance human, a voice in my head reminded me.

Iannis and I talked for a little bit more, but eventually he set me off his lap so he could review a stack of reports he’d brought along. Figuring I might as well be industrious myself, I pulled Spellcraft for Beginners, the primer Janta had loaned me, from my bag. I opened the book and started reading, snacking on some walnut cookies as I did so. It was an interesting text, with lots of easy yet useful spells in it, but without a safe space to practice any of them, I was soon bored. An airship wasn’t a suitable place for magical experiments.

“Where are you going?” Iannis asked as I rose from my chair and headed to the front.

“I’m going to bug the pilots to give me a lesson,” I called over my shoulder. “I plan on owning one of these myself in the near future, and I’d like to be able to fly it.”

Iannis twisted around in his chair, and I turned to look back at him, mere inches away from the double doors that separated the pilots from the main cabin. He stared at me for a long moment, as if he were considering strapping me down into my chair to prevent me from committing such a foolish action.

“Just don’t kill us,” he finally said, turning back around in his seat again. “The Minister won’t be happy if we fail to show up for the meeting.”

“Oh, I’ll get us there on time,” I said, grinning. I pulled open the doors and stepped into the pilots’ cabin, prepared to convince them to let me take over. After all, if Annia could fly one of these contraptions, then I sure as hell could learn how. And I might need to, if I was going to get her out of that Resistance camp in one piece.

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