"Well, no, not really," Grain admits. "We'd have come anyway. This is probably the most interesting thing that's happened since the Fell flight moved in at Opal Night. I just wasn't expecting to be scooped up. I suppose I should have been. It's Stone."

Stone snorts, an amused sort of sound, then jumps off the balcony with both Arbora and Asura held against his chest, spreading his wings to catch him and circling down the central well towards the landing on the mentors' level.

"You really have known him for turns?" Grain asks Gale, with a kind of skeptical curiosity, while Stone is incapable of butting in.