It was Vlad's turn to stammer. "Oh. Er--"

"D'ya think there'll be a war?" Liya asked, not tearing her eyes away from the paper in her hands, her brow creased with sudden worry. She moved her thumb over the grainy photo, next to the smudge of color at the back of the black truck--a smudge smaller than her thumbnail.

"No," Shinobu said matter-of-factly. "Aetheri won't go to war until there are bombs falling on Escalus."

"There'd be riots in Escalus if Cynn Numair tried to make this a real war," Vlad said, mouth tightening in an almost bitter smirk. "I wouldn't worry about that. Some people don't want us in the Archipelago at all, even if it's to save people from the slave trade."

Shinobu regarded him with a slight frown. "Aetherians only think of how poorly the last war went," she said at last, almost as though trying to be placating. "It isn't meant as a cruelty to the victims. Obsession with their own hubris is the Aetherian way."

This stirred Liya from her thoughts a bit; she didn't look up, but mumbled, "I thought the last war was, like, seven thousand years ago?"

"We spirits can live to be a thousand or more," Vlad answered casually, "The Great War wasn't that long ago, to us."

Shinobu had studied Liya for a moment, and now said quite simply, "The Great War saw Aetheri burn its own lands, start a famine, destroy several worlds, and contribute to genocide. Maybe Aetheri oughtn't forget, then."