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“Did you hurt him?”

“No.”

“Did you want to?”

“Yes.”

The honesty strips the air between us clean.

She absorbs it without flinching, though the hand around her folio tightens until the leather creaks softly. “Did Vaerith watch?”

My laugh comes out harsh. “You knew.”

“I suspected he might after Talen saw us.” She glances up at the scrying window, and anger shows for a moment in the flatness of her mouth before discipline smooths it away. “I did not know he would move this quickly.”

“He had a mirror in the window above the passage.”

“The scribe’s office is one of his informal observation points. I should have thought of that.”

“You should have stayed away.”

“I followed Talen at a distance because I thought he might report directly.”

“Instead, you found me cornering him like an idiot.”

“I found you not killing him.”

That lands too close to something raw.

I turn away from her and push both hands through my hair, stopping before I disturb the glamour badly enough to expose the horns pressing beneath it. “Do not make that sound noble.”

“I did not.”

“You’re doing the thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Turning disaster into information.”

“It is information.”

“It is also disaster.”

“Yes,” she says, and her tone gentles without becoming soft. “I am capable of holding both ideas.”

I look back at her, and there is something about her standing there in that ugly gray cloak, chin lifted in a damp passage that smells like rot and old ink, that makes the whole damn world feel poorly constructed around her. She should not fit here. She should not be calm here. She should not make me want to stand between her and every ugly thing in reach when I am one of those ugly things.

The hunger stirs at that thought, wounded and resentful.

I press my fist against my sternum. “He wanted this.”

“Vaerith?”

“He wanted to watch me lose control. Talen wasn’t just being a small-minded ass for recreation. He was bait.”

“Probably.”

I stare at her. “Probably?”