YES TO ALL OF THIS. All of it, including the strikeouts. I spent all of the book wondering about it rather academically, all, "DO I ship them? Oh god, I do ship them, don't I? What is the evidence that I ship them?" But I'm down, man, I'm down.

The first half of the book really lags, until you get to the dragons, and I think she could've probably fixed it with more demons. And arguments with Bel about the demons. I am floored that Bel is apparently fine with Rowan's contention that demons are people too. But wow, the second half, wow. My favorite part of them in Jannik's house was Will being pissed that the computer kept throwing up visual/iconic representations when he just wanted to work with the command prompt-- it was a great character note but also hugely underscored how much the ship's crew have forgotten about how to do their own work.

So the upcoming ship, a second load of colonists? A check-up? A naturalist study? An invasion? It's obviously not someone the wizards are in contact with, or were in Kieran's time, because then merely seeing it appear wouldn't do it. Do you think Slado's trying to trash the planet so they can all leave? What if he's trying to save the intelligent alien species? :D