“I’m only an ignorant aëronaut. I’m so damn ignorant I believed it when I was told that shamans had the gift of flight, for example. Yet here’s a shaman who hasn’t.”

“Oh, but I have.”

“How d’you make that out?”

The balloon was drifting lower, and the ground was rising. […]

“I needed to fly,” said Grumman, “so I summoned you, and here I am, flying.”