“As opposed to what? Roasting meat skewers in the market? There’s not much else it’s good for.” She shook her head. “I’ve heard the stories of the Three Years’ War from the wrinkled old relics in the Tallows. Grandfathers strangled in their beds by bramble vines, children fed to wolves—the Witch Lords don’t know mercy. If Vaskandar invades, I’ll show them they’re not the only demons in the Nine Hells.”

“Well … good?” I sighed. “I wish I could get my Falcon reform act passed before war breaks out, so every mage could choose whether to become a soldier. But my mother says there’s no way I’ll get the support I need in the Assembly with Vaskandran armies at the borders.”

Zaira gave me a sideways glance. “That thing, still? It’ll never pass.”

“After this war, it might,” I insisted. “I have a few members of the Assembly willing to back it already. I just need time.”

“A few. Out of a thousand. Forgive me if I don’t wait like a good little girl for you to free us.” Zaira stopped, hands on her hips. “You don’t think that’s why I’m still here, do you? Because I’ve got hope for your stupid law?”

“No.” I raised my brows. “I assume you stayed for Terika.”

Zaira coughed. “Well, I do like Terika.”

“And maybe a few other friends.” I shrugged. “And the free food, perhaps?”

“It’s not bad,” Zaira conceded. “But no.” She leveled a finger at me. “It’s because now the world knows I exist, and there’s nowhere I can run where they’ll ever leave me alone.”

“Ah.” I didn’t know what else to say; it was true.

“They might swallow your law for artificers or alchemists. Devices and potions don’t make people wet their breeches the way balefire does. But they’re too afraid of warlocks.” She shook her head. “No sane person wants someone who can single-handedly destroy a city on a whim to wander around free. All of Eruvia wants me locked up safe in the Mews—or better yet, dead.”

“I don’t want you locked up or dead,” I said.

“Oh?” Zaira lifted a skeptical brow. “If I decided to run away and take my chances in hiding, what would you do?”

It was something I’d thought about more than once over the past months. Not least because it was hard to imagine any future where Zaira would be content to stay cooped up in the Mews for long. “I’d try to find a way for you to do it legally. To make the Empire let you go.”

“They’d never let me go, and you know it.”

“Well, then, I’d use my influence to do what I could to keep you safe.”