[This is the second page of a double update to kick of chapter 12! Be sure to go back and read the first one if you're landing here from the front page!]

"'Sneak'?" Hawk repeated. He'd taken a couple of the cherry tomatoes and popped one into his mouth. "What, are radios illegal in Aetheri or somethin'?"

"Oh, no, hon," Vlad assured him. "But it's not really safe for us if certain people can trace our, uh, activities back to us individually."

"Oh, but you won't have to sneak anything into the country," Numair said airily. "I've been collecting radios for decades, you see. We have all the radios we need in my office in Aetheri already."

"Oh," Vlad said, and scratched his chin, looking thoughtfully at the sheaf of papers again. "In that case, let me see what my, uh, colleagues think about it."

Numair and Hawk exchanged smiles.

In a dark room by the glow of multicolored floating lights, several people clustered, passing sheets of paper between them so they could each get a look. A huge white horn-nosed creature was peering with one golden eye down over the shoulders of Luu and Milou, studying one of the sheets; a spirit with sideburns held the other sheets for a massive reddish lion, a black vaguely bird-shaped creature, and a curly-haired spirit with a baby burbling at their shoulder to read.

"It's the Cynn who's behind this, isn't it?" the spirit with the sideburns said.