Istredd laughs, a rare occurrence, but Jayden's startled him into it. "I've been using dangerously incompetent and arrogant to describe them, but bad at their jobs is also true." He has a low opinion of Thorne and Ambrose, not that the mage would know as Istredd is unfailingly polite to him. Even helpful. He has to be.

"It may be that the Free Cities are only saying they want to destroy it because Thorne wants to use it, so it could be a lot of talk. We don't really know." Istredd has been on the outskirts of warring nations before and it seems reasonable that one would just keep doing the opposite of their enemy out of spite. It's not worth the risk though.

"War seems inevitable, it just probably won't be over the Singularity."