By the end of the night, Dana was going have told three lies.
The first lie would be the biggest. Lu and Mei had arrived at Sanford, entering the dining room just in time for the end of Lady Pol’s personal safety lecture to Dwayne and an injured Magdala Gallus. After the two young mages explained to Mei and Dana what had happened on the bridge, Dana had been relieved to know Dwayne was uninjured but Mei had gone silent. The hunter’s silences always bore certain quality: the satisfied quietude after a good meal, the focused stillness before a hunt, the stubborn taciturnity of a decision made. That silence had been built of despair.
“He can come back from this,” Mei’s words had shook as she spoke, “right?”
The answer was no. Mei’s brother had committed robbery and murder, both against former allies, neither acts anyone “came back” from. However, feeding Mei’s despair would reduce her ability to protect Dwayne and Dana could not afford that.
Thus the lie. “Yes.”
The second one would be the hardest. When Francesca Lucchesi came to Sanford looking for her roommate, Dana had used the distraction to hand Dwayne the final part of his inheritance, the engraved silver ring lu had retrieved from “Granite’s” study. Young Kalan had put it on, amazed at how well it fit, then he’d asked Mei what had happened as if tears weren’t threatening to roll down his face because business always took priority over the personal. However, when she was done, he sat back in his seat and smiled.
“I was worried,” he’d said, “that I wasn’t going to see him again.”
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Dana’s mission: to monitor the only known male Ri mage outside of the Ri Kingdom, to protect him until the day the benefits of allowing him his freedom no longer outweighed his value as a rare research material. Every one of Dwayne’s successes, every time he proved he’d grown as a mage, Dwayne tipped that scale in his favor, but the moment Dwayne decided to pursue his master, it would fall the other way and Dana would be ordered to bring him in.
Dwayne didn’t know that. He couldn’t know that.
Thus the lie. “You will, my lord.”
Now, the others had fallen asleep; Francesca, Magdala, and Mei in Mei’s room, Lady Pol and her former ship’s inspector of a paramour in the only ready guest room, and Dwayne alone in his room, having escaped before an invitation could be made. That left Dana free to slip out of Sanford and make luz way up the street.
Soon, a carriage rolled up beside lu, its door swinging open in invitation. Smoothly, Dana swung in, closing the door behind luz and taking a seat. Across from luz sat a doughy man with white blond hair and emerald green eyes: Calímaco Delgado Ramos, luz handler, the Circle’s Plenilune for Bradford, and the reason for Dana’s third and final lie of the night.
Ramos’ eyes flickered, a sign that viz medisus was engaging, and then ve asked in the Circle’s sacred language, “Have you been compromised by foreign agents or personal feelings?”
Foreign agents no. The latter however… Dana had to slow luz breath, take luz heartbeat to an unconcerned steadiness, keep luz skin dry because tonight had shown Dana two things that should not be true: lu trusted Mei and lu could not afford to lose Dwayne.
Thus the lie. “No.”
“Very good.” Ramos sat back in his seat. “Report.”