Saturday doesn't exactly smile; she lowers her head, worrying at her thumbnail. "You know, I never really got to see him in action? Not the way people told me he could be. The first time, when we met, I was riding to the rescue at the end of the long fight; he handed the objective to me and passed out, basically." He'd looked at her like she was his last good idea, throwing his final spell to crush the mob around her and shouting the ambassador's location before he fell. And when he'd coming looking for her after the battle his eyes had been so bright.

"Then there was that training exercise, which - he got swatted by an elephant." The other team had shapeshifted their obsidiman into one. "Musta flown twenty feet. Cracked his head against a tree. Said he was trynna show off to me, but I think he was just bein' a dumbass and made up something romantic after to save face."

That turns up the corners of her mouth despite herself. "And - well, all right, job after that we stole a warship, which was pretty fuckin' cool. But then - "

Then they'd arrived in Thera, and everything had gone directly to shit.