Nel looked up as Apache entered and smiled at her. "Morning," she said, between mouthfuls, in that tone of a mother greeting a teenager that got back late the night before.

"Did you get back all right?" She didn't, for example, throw Szayel overboard when they were several thousand feet in the air, or, say, strap him to the Ragnarok's nose and have Yylfordt fly at maximum speed through a field of micropurvamae.

It had probably been tempting.