Four walls to petition to. Too late, if only by seconds, does he realize that there was a little joke about petitioning the gates again. This was a solitary man, one who walked with no company but his shadow and his flask, who sat with strangers every night, rarely the same ones twice. Never turned away but never welcomed either. He had no such thoughts in the moment, but in retrospect? There was much room for retrospect within him, yet despite that so little room for change.
There was a danger in angering Ariane Emory and a stark apathy to such dangers in the Detective Constable. Dying at the hands of an angry duchess of iron and stone... well, there were worse fates, and sometimes, even after all this time, especially after all this time, he still felt drawn to that ledge.
But she had asked for honesty and he gave it in spades, first asking for the bottle, petitioning for it in exchange for what he would give her anyway, and then admitting the only true danger he could possible ware: the loss of whatever purpose he had left in life, the only thing he still had after losing even his loss.
Now, though, it is a slow ritual. Bottle taken. Flask lifted. Opened. Drink poured. Only when the liquid has traveled from one container to the next, does he reach for those papers, to hand the crumpled, stomped upon things to her. "One answer's plenty." He does not drink. No need. That the flask is full is enough for now. Security in liquid form. Treasure locked in its chest. "You ask me? It's all about what you make of it."
Honesty. And what has he given her but that? Kurt Lentham fully rises to his feet again and looks the broken swordswoman dead on. If she wants to look to those tired, clouded eyes, to try to discern fabrication and guile within them, she can, but she will be looking for a very long time indeed and find only what she wants or does not want to see. "Don't know. Didn't ask. Don't care." That was his answer. One answer in three sentences. Did she expect otherwise?
Still, it would be unfair to offer her just that. "Read it before," and that was why he was a Detective Constable, that gift of his late wife's, one that would serve him long past both of their deaths. "Some of it's hooey, but it's hooey I've seen with my own two eyes. Wouldn't need to be here otherwise."