A Missive Received at Calomel Hall.

[Cinnabar]

Blinking at that moment, after becoming used to her sitting so still. That searching glance finds only misery in his features after that question, that accusation, and it's a long moment before he can reply. Quiet, shamed.

"I should have known." But those other questions demand answers, so he takes another mouthful of wine to buy time. Futile, though, for what kind of an explanation can be offered? What kind of explanation could possibly exist?

"I still know very little. He seemed reluctant to speak of it, and I wasn't... I didn't want to push." One does not put strain upon deep wounds, certainly when one does not know how deep they truly are. Assembling what he does know, now, small scraps and fragments and inferences.

"It was some time ago - maybe a year, I'm not sure. He'd found a way to constrain Jirai - neuter her, his word - by giving her compassion." A hesitation, some elaboration needed. "Afflicting her with it, so that she felt it towards others. She didn't understand what it was, and it crippled her." No details on how it was done, the specifics, the mechanics of it. Maybe guesses will be made, for who really possesses the ability to do such a thing? It's a short list.

"Then he was taken - abducted, imprisoned. For a month, or thereabouts." An eternity. "I don't know what happened to him while he was there; he was unwilling to talk about it when we spoke, but seemed calm, so I agreed to leave it for a later time." Regret for that, certainly; he should have pressed for more, should have... what? What could he have done, after the fact?

"He escaped, and returned. By himself. Returned to Myrken, returned to his work, and now is Governor." And really - for a man who could do that, could drag himself out of the clutches of the Drow alone, unaided, surely the office of Governor is a trifling step in comparison. What else might such a man do? Of what else might he be capable?

[Carnath-Emory]

This is too much. This is more than she can quite stand. This is - cowardice, collapsing so in the face of misfortune and guilt and outright grief. It is the way of children and the weak of mind. She can marshal her senses - and does, moment by struggling moment. She can temper her motions, can bite back a breath which had threatened to sob. Moment by moment she can can make this hers again: close her eyes, as she draws in a breath which trembles; exhale it in a slow hush of calm and quiet and -

"A thousand deaths are not enough."

For Sarayn, perhaps. Surely for Sarayn.

"You didn't want to rupture a wound," she's answering him then - and turning, now; pale-lipped and solemn and making some slow, uneven return to her seat. "I understand. I have done this - even with him, and do you know - " It's laughter, now. No. It's not laughter at all. "Do you know, Cinnabar, that his lessons were conditional? This single thing, we agreed: I would teach him everything, everything - regarding swordsmanship. And that would be the beginning and the end of it." A hand reaches blindly for water. "No - conversations, no questions, no advising on any matter at all that did not fall within the reach of his blade. Were he to breach this condition, he would find a different teacher - immediately. No hesitating. No - " A tiny shake of the head. "It didn't last."

Some scant sip from the glass.

"You were right to have caution. You didn't know - Cinnabar, we spoke of such - things." A sudden lift of the eyes; entreating, or perhaps only grieving. "You did not know, I think, the breadth of those wounds. You did not know how he bled - " A premature halt to those words; the slow straightening of her spine concludes with some abrupt exhale. "No. Such talk leads us to no use at all. No. We set this aside," and her hand is doing just that; sweeps inches across the tabletop as if conversation were tangible. "And you draw this chessingboard for me. You tell me - Kerrak lives? Jons Feul does not? These things. Who lives, who dies. What is where. Is this committee a danger. Useful things.

So that I will know if I must do anything at all, and so that I will know if leaving my home will rouse calamities."

[Cinnabar]

"I had some idea. Some small idea, perhaps. But as you say, not of the depth of things. And no, I didn't want to pull open wounds that might yet be healing." Wine set aside now, platter of fruit forgotten, and only "Chessboard." offered as a quiet correction. Very well; put aside guilt, put aside regret. Consider facts, and facts alone.

A steadying breath, calling upon the control which has served him so well for so long. Some frown for mention of calamities, not entirely understanding, but turning to the task.

"Glenn lives, as I've described. Changed. Rhaena Olwak also, also changed. She's... nice." Not that she wasn't before, but still. Hard to describe. "It's like she doesn't see unpleasantness. She found me with this" A wave of a hand for the bruises that mar his face. "and wasn't... hm. She walked with me to the Rememdium, not out of concern, but because I looked a terrible mess, and needed to be tidied." Some approximation of that light and pleasant tone, incongruous in hindsight.

"Of the Thessils, Kerrak lives again, I have heard, but I don't know him; Karolinger, regrettably, also lives." Expression darkening somewhat. "Worse than mad. Worse than beast, from what I've been told. Atrocities. Constables, townsfolk. Children." He still has friends among the Constabulary, and has heard murmurs of the once-Captain's acts.

"Feul was Janeiro, yes?" Barely familiar with the man, he can only shrug. "I've not heard anything about him, so I couldn't say."

Another pause, thinking carefully.

"Of the Council I know little, save that Glenn took his post by winning their saction. Somehow." A shrug, unsure of how that was accomplished. "The Committee, as I've said, is filled with strange choices. Possibly on purpose, so that no one voice might command the military. Lessons learned from Haberdasher's Row." And where might they be if that hadn't taken place? If Helstone had remained Governor, if Bromn had stuck to baking.

"Ask me some more names."

[Carnath-Emory]

Chesbord

Written with clenched jaw and by a hand still marked by small tremors. This is the look of anger barely controlled, and it is only this slow, deliberate conversation that has it leeching gradually from her features.

"Glenn Burnie weaves prosperity for Myrkentown and fairytales for friends. Rhaena Olwak lives as if life were nothing else. Is this your meaning?" With some slight moue of the lips for what he indicates; the most her mouth will accommodate. "But the Olwak girl, she - she is what she is," as if the words needn't be spoken aloud. As if they shouldn't be. "Perhaps it can be no other way for her, now. Perhaps there is nothing else - no." A tiny shake of her head. "I am cautious of speculating; I know this word, I know that it is sometimes dangerous. So." Her hand flips the page over onto its back, and:

Kerrak
Erin

"How comes it that Kerrak yet lives?" And when he spoke that name, there was an instant in which she'd almost begun to smile.... "In what way is Aeryn gone so wrong? You say these 'atrocities', but I was told not long ago that in the time of Governor Burnie, Myrken's atrocities are more often bloodless." Oh, that man; that assassin. If she'd pressed him for explanations...

"Jons Feul is Janeiro. And many other things besides, the first being that he is streltsy - mn. 'A bloody-minded bastard'. That is how they said him, Northwards." This time it is a smile, thinly grim. "I liked him. I was cautious of him. Days ago they were drinking to his memory - a very many miles from here. Jons is nothing that such men could forget." And the hand hovers near that page a moment, makes as if to add his name to the rest, only to withdraw - reluctantly; deliberately.

"Glenn Burnie is very good at winning. You know this, yes? He will win with blades if he can - because he likes to. He will win with words if he must - because he is able to. He likes to win. So do I." A sudden, frank confession; nothing the man doesn't know, but it is spoken so simply, and with her eyes lifted to his at last. "And for years, what do you think he learned from me?" So grave, this smile. So quietly, what follows:

"The Governor's man. What is his name?"

[Cinnabar]

A momentary, fleeting urge to correct that spelling, but quickly pressed aside as trivial. Nodding instead, as Ariane does well in describing what is so odd about Rhaena. Then there's the beginning of another list of names, and questions that he can't even begin to answer.

"I don't know how. Only that he does, and well enough that the Governor gave him an appointment." Strange things happen in Myrken.

"I know only what I've heard, but to call Karolinger's work bloodless is the as far from true as one can get. Murders here and there - farm folk in their homes, townsfolk in the streets, Constabulary patrols - wherever he can find victims. Murder, dismemberment, violation, in whatever order he pleases. Then he takes their heads." A cold gaze lifted from the paper, ice grey set in crimson. "If you meet him, giving him a quick death would be a greater kindness than he deserves."

Moving on, though, a nod to that description of the late Jons Feul, acknowledging without agreeing. An officer of Janeiro, and that's enough to keep him from fond regard in Calomel's eyes.

The Governor likes to win, yes, and who doesn't. But coupled with that determination, to use whatever weapons will best work - blades or words, both wielded to cut - well, yes.

"How to win against you." The answer is quick, obvious, enough that from anyone else the question might have seemed rhetorical. How she fought, how she sought to win; where her strengths lay, and where one might find her weaknesses.

That last question, though, receives only a small frown of uncertainty.

"Which man?"

[Carnath-Emory]

The man who was Governor has restrained his desire to correct - a restraint which is uncommon, and a kindness of which he himself is the sole recipient. What might have come of the moment otherwise? He is sat near a thing so tightly-wound that its hand still trembles with a hundred forbidden wants; so very guarded, in its way, that it's not neglected to hide half its face away even now, not neglected to turn its eyes away as well, during the very worst of this exchange, when the lips were a bitten tremble and the body could not sit still at all -

It's a little less fraught, now; a woman has learned how to channel herself into Work, an engine which turns anger into outcomes. In that respect, this small thing - a moment's good judgement - benefits them both.

"He beds - where?" The quill again; the hand hovering near its page. "The Meetinghouse? The Barracks?" Surely Calomel had suspected she would make contact with al'Nerun; he is not unaware that there exists some history here. Orvere. A deceit so breathtaking that she'd nearly broken a Duke's face for it; that she'd discovered, in the same moment, how dizzying gladness could become. "But what has become of that boy," and her frown has only deepened; the quill hesitates near Aeryn's name, hesitates but moves aside when: "It's the Duke I'd rather question." No need to lift her eyes this time; it's too easy to imagine what those words do to Calomel's face. "Impossible. Unwise. But do you know? That a half-mile past Myrken borders I was told that journeying here was unwise, that I ought simply turn aside. So - "

Shakes her head then; a very small motion. "But no. I know. It cannot be Burel." And things can be simpler between them, then. For the time it takes to ask the simplest question and receive a response so unlikely that she's blinked. Simply blinked, despite all of that rage -

"No."

and

"What?"

and blank incomprehension, all concluded with some dismissive shake of her head. "No. That is - Yes, of course, but what matter of it? As if I would raise arms against my student," and the quill waves that consideration aside as distasteful; unfathomable. "No - Cinnabar, he has learned that success is its own reward. That triumph is a virtue. He has learned every day that he should have pride in forcing a defeat. I taught him that it's good to win, and that he must."

And knows, in that moment, that she lacks appropriate words for the magnitude of this. Lips slightly part; wholly pause; a shake of her head.

"The Governor's man." Almost impatiently, now. "Tall - " a hand indicates, "with his mn - knives, with his black and his southerner's accent. Shaven chin, and his eyes - " His wounded eyes. Things which she will not describe. "He is trusted, or he imagines that he is trusted.

He has my name. And I would like to have his."

[Cinnabar]

"You'd do better to find these answers from Agnieszka; I don't have the connections. But somewhere in town, I believe. I can find out." As good as he's able to offer on the matter of al'Nerun, at this moment. At that hesitation by Aeryn's name he nods, urging. "Scratch him. He's good as dead, and certainly no ally." Talk of the Duke, though, and a small snort of irritation is the reply. Best to leave it, best to move on, except there's a question.

"Who told you that? To turn aside?" Who even knew that she'd returned? Hm.

"When we first met again, I asked if he had a sparring partner - for the sake of sentiment, hm? Hoping to rebuild what I'd let wither." Thoughtful, thinking back to that awkward, unsettling reunion. "He claimed to have spent a year learning to exceed a Drow in speed, magic, treachery. Perhaps Jirai? Again, I've no details yet. But he warned that if we sparred I'd best not hold back, as he didn't want to hurt me. And I believe him."

Lessons in the value, the virtue of victory, of winning simply because one can.

"Triumph by any means?" Doubtful, or at least wishing to be. Surely that's not a lesson the swordswoman had given. His gaze recalls a small silver urn that may also have been a weapon, and how bitterly she had refused to wield it. Or let it be wielded at all. Too great a price.

He can only shake his head at that description, though. "I've not seen him. I don't know him." An answer that he's using more than he'd like. Far more. Hm. Knives. Suspicions grow like pale things in the dark, gossamer connections made.

"How do you know this man?"

[Carnath-Emory]

What a question he asks. And how inevitable that he'd ask it - this man who reformed the Constabulary, this man whose mind is made for mysteries and their unraveling. It's considered for a moment: the simplicity of explanations, the speed at which consequences become complicated. But when she speaks, it's to address different matters entirely.

"Agnieszka is untouchable." Flat refusal. "Years-long, our acquaintance, and it has done her more harm than good; she is in the Governor's service now, a service which benefits her very well indeed. I will not complicate this with an approach; enough that I've asked you here, mn?" Cinnabar Calomel: one of the two people she imagines exist quite beyond danger's reach. And now that quill has touched near Aeryn's name upon that page; once, twice. "I'll have him, then. If Aeryn Karolinger has gone so far - then I would know the why of this. I cannot discount it. I cannot say: Oh, there is a madman over there, let us take up arms and kill it very much!" Her eyes anticipate a challenge; the words have emerged despite. "If he is no ally, then I would have him -

But what are we doing here, Cinnabar." More quietly, then; the question is earnest. "Allies? Are we collecting allies? To what end are we doing this?"

He is given time to consider this question; time, because she must unfold herself from that bench then, remove herself to the kitchen proper. He has all the time that it takes to fetch water which steams, to fill a mug, to set it with some small, ceramic pot upon a tray and then return with these things balanced on one hand. Precarious. Essential. The other arm is good for little but hanging at her side.

"Jirai. Sarayn. Any Drow whatsoever; they were like to a plague, yes? So, you tell me then: did you match blades, you and he? You tell me this, and then perhaps we speak of means. This man, though..." And she will let the words hang a moment, as she seats herself and settles the tray; as measures a spoonful or two from that pot into her steaming mug. An acrid scent, when she stirs.

"This man. This man approached me some half-mile short of Myrken borders. He spoke of - many things; all of them interesting, few of them useful." She pauses, bends her head to sip; meets his eyes across the mug's edge. "For our purposes here."

[Cinnabar]

"Very well." Assent to the insistence that the Chair of the Defence Committee be left very much untroubled. To spare her complications.

"The things he has done are beyond understanding, beyond sympathy. Here, say, is to stab a man in a tavern taproom." His fingertip draws an invisible line drawn to his left. "Here is burning a family while they sleep." Another line, directly before him. "Here, then, is to butcher the family entirely, to carve them apart, to strew the floor with their entrails, to daub the walls with their blood, all for the delight of doing so. And here dwells whatever it is that used to be Karolinger. He is gone. There's no coming back from that." There cannot be. No return, excuse, no forgiveness.

But then the matter of allies, of the reason to list them so. Is that not what they were doing? Time enough to think on it, to consider why he feels the need. To probe that nagging uncertainty, that uneasiness, like the socket of a missing tooth, and when she returns he has only the vaguest of answers.

"It's important to know who you can trust. Always. Especially if you're newly-returned after some time away, hm?" Things change.

"I've not sparred with Glenn yet, no. I'm reluctant to, as I've been out of practice for a while now." A rueful admission, as befits a man who admits to neglecting important studies. But the talk of this man, who purported to be in the Governor's employ and yet warned the swordswoman to leave is confusion upon confusion. How did he know of her return? On whose orders did he give his message? Why would he tell her to leave?

One can speculate, one can draw inferences and connections between mention of knives and that lumpish shoulder, that careful walk. The tea that isn't shared, and certainly not enjoyed for the taste. Familiar to a man whose wife is so skilled in such things. Such medicine. The fact that he had told her turn back, and yet here she was.

"How did he take it when he was ignored?"

[Carnath-Emory]

Perhaps Calomel's assent is reluctant; she can't be certain, not in this moment, and will spare that consideration for another hour, another day. But Calomel's objections are unmistakable and vigorous, a litany of horrors with which no sane mind would argue - not even hers. He will know this in the moment that her hand sets a mug aside and breaches the space between them; slaps its palm down upon the distinction his fingers have drawn, obliterating.

"Of course there's not," she's hissed. "Of course there is no excusing this, and where he has gone we are wise not to follow. But I would know the reason for this, Cinnabar. I would know its cause, I would have questions answered. I will tell you now that it was Jons Feul and Governor Burnie that brought me back to this place: the death of one, the rise of another, and - so much more besides, things that I do not begin to understand. I - "

Dreamed of such catastrophe, she might have said, and does not.
Cannot dare compromise herself with words that ring with madness.

" - will not have this go unexplored," she concludes instead, and more quietly then. "But think on this: trust; alliances. These are not same things - not always. These are not - have patience," she's asking then, this woman who has suddenly struggled with her words; lifts a hand in quiet request. "Reposition your thoughts. In my experience, it is an absence of trust that would have me reach for alliances. An absence of trust, a presence of threat. So that is my question to you, I think: reposition, so that you are newly returning to the business of Myrken Wood - weeks ago, months ago." She is not certain of that date; realises only now that she'd never asked. "Listen to your intuitions, and tell me if - not now, but then - it seemed there was an absence which alliances must fill."

Because wasn't it just that which had brought her here? Crushing intuition. Which is dangerous ground at any time, and the moreso for a woman who manages best what falls within the reach of her sword, what will bleed beneath the weight of steel. And what follows is dangerous ground, as well, lined with the sting of fresh wounds and familiar regrets. There comes an instant in which it seems that her head might lift, that a hand might sweep curtaining hair aside; he must know, after all, this man who's taken Cambree for his wife. He surely realises some of it - but no; she's only bending her head to sip at that cup a second time, a third...

"He took it ... as a man does, who is not accustomed to being refused."

[Cinnabar]

He blinks at that palm upon the tabletop, a flash of vexation, a tensing of muscles at jaw and temple. But a slow nod to follow, a slower breath in, then out. Accepting that explanation, once he's had a moment to step back from the Janeiro man's fall.

Then talk of trust, alliances, and the differences between them. And he nods again, gradually understanding as he chews upon the idea. It had been necessity, during the Fiend's campaign of terror, that had brought unlikely allies together, trust or no. That had seen Constables fight alongside Shepherd Knights, for all that he had little trust for their Master.

Thinking back again, more recently, to his reunion with Glenn Burnie. Respect there, some shared history certainly, but trust? The answer has him reaching for the wine cup again, and then for the bottle to top it up.

"It's a different Myrken, and I know no one in it. I find myself wondering if I ever did." Lost, turning to familiar faces only to find strangers' eyes looking back at him. Hard to read those bruised and mottled features, but his eyes... his eyes are briefly desolate, and there follows a long moment of thought, of distant scrutiny, of doubt; perhaps even here he is mistaken, seeing a trusted friend only because he is so desperately in need of one. How can he be certain?

The Governor's man, though.

"Did he say why he wished you to stay away?"

[Carnath-Emory]

It is a critical distinction between the former Constable and the occasional monster: that the one can credibly question whether trust ever existed between himself and their Governor; that the other has always known better. Days had begun with the clash of steel, the pant of laboured breath; months had become years, a student had become a prodigy, and the most solemn vow he'd spoken to her had been sundered almost from the beginning. Repeatedly. Inevitably. Preciously.

Almost strange, then, that Calomel must think on this so quietly, when moments ago he'd been all flash and fire, an instant's real anger sparked in his eyes. Strange to her, also, that she'd almost preferred that to - this. This quietness. The need with which he reaches for that bottle. And to think, that she'd always imagined that Glenn Burnie and Calomel were so close, were nigh on inseparable.

"Is it really so changed?" Quietly now; slowly, between one sip from her mug and then another, in hopes that there will be some relief for a shoulder, for a leg which cannot quite stand rough use or any use at all. "The Committee - I know. The school. The Governor," wry-lipped. "But these are offices. You wonder at people - yes? But you have been here. You have been right here in their midst; are so many gone from here? So many you once knew? What have they fled?"

And could this be any more familiar? That a swordswoman has mistaken melancholy for dire tidings.
It's entirely possible, of course, that she prefers such talk to the sort which involves assassins....

"Oh, he said a very many things. He would have me turn aside before I'd properly arrived at all. And for my part, I would have him abandon his employer and never return. 'Stalemate'. That is the word for this, yes? I could not meet his request, and he answered mine with his sword." She pauses here, the mug just short of her lips; considers its contents a moment, and other things besides. "Sometimes I think that - he actually wanted to." Subtle motion lifts her eyes towards Calomel's. "Sometimes I imagine that he almost chose - differently; chose the easy way." The smile is so small, as she murmurs: "Sentimentality."

A shake of her head, as if to clear it; nevermind that he's the one with the wine-glass. "We agreed on this one thing: that Myrken is changed very much by the rule of Governor Burnie. But we could not agree on how it might be let to prosper. Me, I had it that Myrken is most threatened by its own bloodsoaked nature. Him, he had it that Myrken is most threatened by me."

And after pausing a moment to watch how a man will digest this, adds:

"You can't say he doesn't have a point."

[Cinnabar]

It's a habit long-learned, long-practised until it is almost reflex; to hold back the fire of anger, to lock it behind stout walls and heavy doors. So carefully hoarded, lest it burn someone it should not.

So there is self-imposed calm, stillness, silence, measured in controlled breaths and muscles willed to loosen. Control like iron.

"I've not been here - not in any sense that matters. The farm has everything I'd need, everything I want. I only returned lately to the Dagger, after years away. It has a different crowd." A half-shrug, such a thing obvious, to be expected. Time passes, things change.

"I sought no contact, desired no contact, so I don't know what's become of them. Gone, or fled, or slain, I don't know. Maybe to someplace that isn't this place. You left for a time, hm? What were your reasons?" Frustrated at having to admit such a broad ignorance when previously he'd been so well-informed. No accusation, though, not even much by way of curiosity - clearly she had reasons which made sense to her, and so there's only an invitation to think on them, and how others may have had equally valid cause to leave.

But on to the Governor's man, and an approving nod for the correct use of stalemate. "Or impasse." Neither side willing to yield, neither side open to compromise. And at last an explanation for those well-disguised wounds, offered in her own time. The fruits of patience.

The assassin's words spark confusion, though, utter confusion; more time needed to think through what he meant, what he may have meant. Turning what he knows of things this way and that, trying to make them fit in such a way that the Governor's man would think it vital to slay his employer's tutor.

"I can't say that he does. Did he explain how you so threaten the land?" Suspicions, perhaps, but not ones he finds credible. Still unwilling to believe the Governor so fragile.

[Carnath-Emory]

Time passes. Things change. Iron never does, though. Iron will erode beneath neglect or abuse, but it is not much subject to change at all. So that once she'd murmured this to an architect's ear: how fine, to be wrought of steel instead of blood and yielding flesh; how marvelous a thing to be just so unwavering, so utterly steadfast! A secret, precious wish, and one that allows her some particular and silent sympthy for Calomel's words; for the tone in which he speaks them. A hand flattens upon the tabletop between them; lingers there a moment, an echo of other times - months from here, miles from here, and on an indrawn breath it removes to the mug again; a woman shakes her head.

"I think - " The word is left to hang, as she considers the look of this man, the set of his features. "I think that my reasons matter very little - to you, and to this. To anyone at all, for I suspect they involve three corpses - and so who is left to care?" The grin is sudden and fierce and hurts. "I think, too, that you are owed an apology, Cinnabar Calomel. For I've not been a good friend to you, no matter that I intended better. You warranted more than you were given, and better than you've received."

A long swallow from that mug. Its burn soothes the throat, hastens relief for flesh strained too far.

"Your word is better than his. Impasse." The voice savours it; the lips shape it a second, soundless time. "It sounds like what it is. More words should be like that one," and the eyes smile where the mouth cannot. "Tell me this thing, for - there is a way to explain this man's meaning, but I think that you will not like it. It is a question, and you must answer it in earnest all the same - will you do this?"

He will. He surely will.

"It is this: the Ashfiend's urn is given me, and to you is given the certain knowledge that it will surely be his undoing if properly... defiled." Another new word. "Do you think that I will surrender it to you? No. No, never, you will have it only when you wrest it from my hands - are you capable? Are you willing?

That, Cinnabar, is where it begins."

[Cinnabar]

Iron left to its own devices; iron kept free of injury, clean of things which might slowly corrode it to flakes and dust. But what in Myrken Wood is ever left so mercifully unscathed? They'd spoken, long ago, of planishing. A word from the smithy for the way a rain of small blows might make iron harder, more rigid; taken too far, though, and it becomes brittle.

And what was life in Myrken if not a constant rain of blows? One grows harder, and eventually one breaks.

Reasons demurred, and some small flick of fingers notes the questions as not one he'd expected to have answered. He has no claim to answers from her at all, no expectation of such. Nor of apologies, though he nods his head in acceptance. "You've been kind to me." A thought, and a small glimmer of mischief in reply to that grin. "Most weapons know only one sort of kindness. So again I find myself glad you're not most." A compliment, though a convoluted one.

Sipping his wine in mirror of the swordswoman and her tea, though with a touch more restraint, though every bit as much need. Ah, a riddle next - or at least a puzzle, and he sits up with the air of a keen student, listening attentively. The question is posed, and considered with solemn concentration. Perhaps some of it visible in how his gaze moves: grey eyes searching her own for a time, before dropping to her bandaged shoulder, that cup of tea and the hurts it's meant to sooth.

Some subtle flex of fingers and shift of posture, more poised, balanced, as if running through the sequence of events in his head: a cupful of wine dashed into her face, or even her own tea if he's quick, to blind and scald; at once standing and heaving at the edge of the table, to topple and pin her beneath its sturdy wood. And from there matters would be straightforward - perhaps even allowing her to be subdued, rather than murdered outright. Brutal calculations made quickly, a matter of position, reflex, reach and strength. A fleeting instant of cold arrogance, victory seen and as quickly seized. Barely a challenge at all.

But that's not the question.

Assuming he could wrest the urn from her hands - without killing her, or even seriously damaging her - what would it mean after the Ashfiend is ended? A price paid in trust irrevocably lost - no, worse than lost, murdered.

It forces a pause, and he immediately knows the hesitation itself to be the answer. Gaze level with hers, he lays his palm flat on the table and slides it briskly towards her, as if to push those thoughts firmly away. The whole situation disgusts and frustrates, and he rejects it.

"No. I would not."