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Illario is not surprised when he turns the corner for the market and sees Rook standing by one of the stalls – it’s certainly not the first time – but he is surprised to see her alone. Normally Lucanis is hovering somewhere nearby or the constantly-fidgeting elf girl. He’s not sure he’s ever caught Rook alone, and while he’d originally planned on heading straight to Café Pietra this evening, he decides instead he’d rather not waste this rare opportunity.
Rook is distracted as he approaches, fingers idly tracing along the edge of the table as her eyes rove over the books on display at the stall. She looks softer like this – gentle curiosity on her face rather than the whip-sharp focus she wears when they’ve having their meetings with Viago and Teia. She’s out of her usual armour too, though he knows her well enough to suspect that she’s better protected than she might appear. Her long jacket is clearly expensive, well-tailored, likely enchanted. Although, as much as Illario is an enthusiast for good tailoring, it’s what’s beneath the jacket that really catches his eye – white gauzy blouse unbuttoned just enough to be inviting, tight-fitting trousers accentuating a shapely pair of legs.
Rook is beautiful – and Illario does so enjoy beautiful things.
“The Decameron is a good read,” he says, plucking the book in question from the table and offering it to Rook, “widely regarded to be Boccaccio’s finest work.”
She largely manages to hide her surprise, though of course he’d caught the slight jump when he’d spoken. There’s a friendly-enough smile on her lips but her eyes are searching, like she’s anticipating some sort of trap.
“Oh yes? And what is it about?” she asks, not missing a beat.
“Torrid love affairs. Sensual discovery. Eventual betrayal – all the sweet agonies that make life so… delicious.” He leans languidly against the table as he speaks, knowing that it’s the best way to emphasise his slim torso and the long line of his legs.
She takes the book from his hand, nose wrinkling as she inspects the cover. “Every story in Tevinter ends in betrayal,” she says, placing the book back on the table, “maybe I’m looking for something… different.”
“And who am I to deny the desires of a beautiful woman?” he asks, noting with pleasure the slight flush of pink that comes to her cheeks at the compliment. He makes a show of searching the stall’s display before picking up another book and holding it up for her inspection. “Amadís sin Tiempo,” he says, “my personal favourite of Montalvo’s works.”
One brow lifts in question as Rook takes the book from him, delicate fingers tracing the calligraphy on the cover in a way that is strangely enticing.
“It’s about two Crows, torn between loyalty to their houses and the undeniable sexual attraction that keeps bringing them back to each other. It has a happy ending, of sorts.”
“Of sorts?”
“Well… there’s a lot of stabbing. But pleasure so rarely comes without a little pain.”
She snorts a laugh. “Is every story in Antiva a love story?”
“Who said anything about love?” he asks with a laugh of his own, making sure to throw his head back so she can see the fine embroidery on his tall collar. “Stories in Antiva are about passion. About the frisson of anticipation at that first chance encounter, the excruciating torment of unrequited yearning, the sweet relief when everything comes crashing together in a tumble of sweat and heat and touch.”
He's watching Rook as he talks, looking for those tell-tale signs that he’s captivated her attention. A breathy gasp, perhaps, or a darkening of her honey-brown eyes. Instead there’s a heavy pause. She holds steady, sharp eye contact with him, the kind of penetrating gaze that he imagines would be quite unnerving for anyone else. But Illario was raised by the First Talon and her scrutiny only spurs him on. He returns her stare unflinching, narrowing his eyes in provocation. The slight flush from her cheeks has spread up her ears, he notes, down her neck, and for one triumphant moment he’s sure he’s got her.
She puts the book down. “Actually, I’m not much of a fiction reader.”
Mierda.
He can feel the moment slipping away, Rook turning her attention to the rest of the market as she starts to walk from the bookstall. Before he realises what he’s doing, his hand snatches out, certain that if he can get her to stay for just a little longer, he can charm her over like countless others have been charmed before her. She startles a little when his hand captures her wrist but doesn’t resist when he pulls her back to him. Or when he lifts her hand to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles.
“My dear Rook,” he purrs, still holding her hand, “if fiction is not your preference then let me suggest some fine pieces of poetry. There’s a reason why Antiva’s bards are famed across all of—.”
“Illario?” Lucanis interrupts, appearing behind Rook with a bag of groceries slung over his shoulder and several baguettes cradled in his arms. It’s a bit surprising Illario hadn’t noticed Lucanis’s approach, but then there’s no way he would have recognised Lucanis doing something as mundanely domestic as grocery shopping.
Lucanis’s expression is oddly tight for someone seemingly enjoying an early-evening stroll around the market – and Illario wonders what could have possibly riled his cousin so until he notices how Lucanis’s eyes linger on Rook’s hand in his and, oh, isn’t that curious. Lucanis is so rarely interested in anyone, it had never even occurred to Illario that the Crow’s newest ally might have drawn his cousin’s notice. He’d already decided that Rook would be fun to pursue but now, watching the discomfort shift behind Lucanis’s carefully neutral expression, the chase seems all the more compelling.
“Well it looks like my cousin has come to steal you away from me,” Illario says, relinquishing Rook’s hand only after pressing another lingering kiss to her knuckles.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Lucanis says, as pleasant and polite as always, though Illario knows his cousin too well to miss the tension in his jaw as he speaks, “but I believe we have everything on our list, Rook.”
Rook is rubbing her thumb over the spot where he’d kissed her. “Good, that’s good. Illario and I were just—” She stops. They were just—what? “Illario was sharing some book recommendations.”
One of Lucanis’s brows arches in response, unsurprising given Illario has never been much of a reader.
“We should get back to the Lighthouse,” Rook continues, “Bellara will be keen to start cooking. Illario, I—uh—thank you, for your insights on Antivan literature.”
He gives a small bow. “It was my absolute pleasure. Buenas noches, señorita.”
He watches as Lucanis and Rook leave the market, not moving until they’ve both vanished from sight, waiting in case Rook looks back at him (disappointingly, she does not). It’s not quite the ending to the evening he’d hoped for when he’d first spotted Rook standing alone. Not that he’d expected Rook to be an easy target, that’s part of her appeal – but he’d hoped to coax a few more blushes out of her, maybe a coquettish laugh or two. But Illario is not dissuaded by a rocky start, knows that a lengthy pursuit will just make it all the sweeter when he finally manages to bed her. Especially if bedding her deprives Lucanis of something he so clearly craves.
Illario stops off at the bookstall again before leaving the market – buying an anthology of Antivan poems bound in buttery soft red leather. He’ll add it to the stack of letters and missives that Teia and Viago plan on sending to the Lighthouse in the morning.
It takes him longer than expected to pen the perfect inscription for the inside cover, deciding, in the end, on something short and cloyingly sentimental:
Rook,
May these poems inspire you to find your happy ending.
Yours, Illario
The sky is suitably dark on the day of Caterina’s funeral, sunlight dulled behind a thick pall of grey, draining the landscape of colour. Illario expects it will rain – with the clouds resting so dark and low above the city. In some ways, he’s hoping it will; the air is hanging so heavy and damp and close, he would welcome the relief.
Illario sits on a rooftop across from the Chantry, watching the crowd of mourners as they gather in the courtyard below. It’s far smaller than it should be – the death of a First Talon is usually an occasion of great pomp and ceremony – but with the Antaam occupation, it’s hard to gather in large groups. The funeral is already being held later than originally planned; the Antaam had threatened to disband, violently, any attempt to gather. The Crows had dared them to try. In the end it was Ivenci of all people who was able to work out a compromise that would allow for Caterina to have a suitable farewell without bringing more bloodshed to a city that is already so tired of fighting. The Crows had reluctantly agreed.
He hears footsteps coming from the building behind him long before he hears the tell-tale scuffling of someone climbing through the window onto the roof – too loud and clumsy to be a Crow. When he turns his head, it’s Rook gingerly making her way across the tiles towards him. She’s wearing all black, a long tunic over fitted trousers – all suitably mournful apart from the enormous ruby and gold studs at her ears. He finds himself smiling; Caterina would have approved of such an ostentatious detail.
She sits down next to him, close enough that he can feel the air shift as she moves. There’s a long pause before she finally breaks the silence with, “nice view.”
He wrinkles his nose – it’s really not. From this vantage point, with the clouds so low, the buildings look charcoal-smudged with haze, the people below an indistinct blur of black.
“I’m surprised you were able to spot me up here.”
“I wasn’t – it was Lucanis who noticed you.”
He scoffs. Of course it was Lucanis. Lucanis, who can hear a Venatori approaching from several floors away. Lucanis who can spot his target in a ballroom of hundreds. Lucanis who never misses anything. Or at least not until the Ossuary – he didn’t see that coming. The scoff turns into a soft chuckle. Rook looks confused, eyebrows furrowed.
“So he sent you to talk to me?” he asks.
She shakes her head, eyes narrowing as if offended by the question. “No, I just—I thought—I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about your grandmother.” She reaches out to place her hand on his where it rests in the space between them, probably meant as a comforting gesture.
Mierda, he can’t stand this. Can’t stand Rook offering him sympathy for a dead grandmother who is very much still alive. A grandmother whose current state of misery is very much his own doing. He’s been able to pretend in front of Teia and Viago, even Lucanis, the one person Illario thought might actually be able to see below all the bluster and feigned emotion. But he’d wanted to keep Rook separate – keep her in that category of “beautiful women he’s looking forward to bedding” rather than “person who seems invested in his wellbeing”.
He waves away her concern. “You don’t have to do to that.”
“Do what?”
“Just… don’t say you’re sorry.”
There’s a long silence – he rather wishes Rook would just leave. Although he does like how pleasantly warm her hand is where it still rests on his.
“When my grandmother died, it was really interesting to hear the language that people used at her funeral,” Rook finally says. “Everyone kept describing her as “willful’ or ‘formidable’ – probably because it’s not socially acceptable to call someone a bitch at their own funeral.”
Illario snorts a laugh. Whatever he thought Rook was going to say, that was not it. “Are you calling my grandmother a bitch?”
She shrugs. “Not exactly. But Lucanis describes Caterina as ‘prickly’. She sounds… hard to be close with. And it’s understandable if you have… some mixed feelings now that she’s dead.”
Oh Maker, that’s why she’s here – she thinks he’s removed himself from the other mourners because of some tragic inner turmoil, not because he’s just steeling himself for the performance of a lifetime as he says his final goodbyes to a woman barely a few hours walk from his current location.
It is rather endearing, he concedes, that Rook would take it upon herself to try and comfort him. Illario prefers his seductions to be fleeting things – kindness from his partners is very much not expected or, in fact, desirable. But he supposes… this isn’t too bad.
He shifts his hand beneath hers until he can entwine their fingers, lifts her hand to bring it to his lips. “Thank you Rook,” he whispers against the back of her hand, tiny hairs prickling up as his breath ghosts over her skin, “you are most kind.”
He maintains fierce eye contact as he brings her hand up for a kiss, looking up at her through the dark fan of his long eyelashes. She responds with a smirk, indulgent and, he likes to imagine, a little fond.
Finally, it starts to rain.
Illario misses the Cantori Diamond as it used to be, thronging with crowds, ringing with noise – the clinking of drinks glasses and the high trilling of laughter. It’s still the most lively place for late nights in Treviso, but it’s noticeably more muted since the Antaam occupation. The crowds have only slightly thinned but the energy is duller; people drink more and laugh less.
Tonight the Diamond is livelier than he’s seen it in a long time. A series of successful operations against the Antaam has forced them to regroup, limiting the number of patrols they can field in a day and leaving many of the usual checkpoints abandoned. The city feels like it can finally breathe a little, and for the patrons of the Diamond, it feels like they finally have something to celebrate.
Illario is pocketing his modest winnings from a thoroughly mediocre evening of gambling when he spots a familiar figure at the bar. Well… familiar at the same time as utterly unrecognisable.
Rook’s hair has been pinned elaborately to the top of her head, accentuating the long column of her neck and well-toned shoulders. Clusters of white diamonds hang from each ear, catching the flickering candlelight and drawing the eye to her with every flash of reflected light. And her dress – her dress is a marvel of engineering. Azure-blue fabric has been draped and folded around her body, cinching her waist, hugging her hips, dipping low at the back. There doesn’t appear to be any fastenings – no buttons, no lacings – the whole thing appears to be one expertly draped length of cloth, held in place by a single broach at her left shoulder, a golden bird with enamel insets for the feathers.
He has always known Rook to be beautiful. But tonight, he cannot take his eyes from her.
There’s more than a little swagger in his step as Illario approaches the bar; he knows he looks particularly good tonight, boots freshly shined and a well-tailored waistcoat that makes his shoulders look broader and his waist trim. He leans on the bar with practiced nonchalance as he flags down the bartender, pretending he hasn’t noticed Rook until he’s ordered and received his drink – a rich, smoky whiskey.
He smooths his hand along his hair one last time before turning and ‘spotting’ Rook beside him, a lazy smirk spreading across his face as he drawls, “my dearest Rook, what an unexpected delight it is to see you here.” He lets his gaze pointedly drift across her body. “Don’t you look absolutely stunning tonight.”
She rolls her eyes at the praise but smiles at him all the same. “Thank you, Illario – the dress is Teia’s.”
“Is she with you?” he asks, very much hoping she is not.
“You just missed her, she has an, uh, important meeting with Viago to attend,” she says, obvious sarcasm in her tone when she mentions Viago. The romance between the two talons is the worst-kept secret in Antiva.
He laughs. “At this hour, I imagine it’ll be a very long and arduous meeting indeed.”
She hides her grin in her glass as she finishes the last few sips of her wine. Illario takes it upon himself to gesture towards the bartender for another. Rook looks a little startled as he does.
“No, no,” she insists with a wave of her hand, “it’s late; I should probably return to the Lighthouse.”
Illario catches her hand in his, entwining their fingers together and bringing her hand to his lips for a kiss. “Absolutely not,” he says, pitching his voice low and husky, “I cannot possibly let such beauty slip away before I have had the time to truly savour it.”
“Maker, Illario, do you always talk such bullshit?” she asks, though there’s more amusement in her tone than any genuine heat. He notices she doesn’t turn away the wine when the bartender brings the bottle to refill her glass.
He gasps in faux offence. “Rook, you wound me. I have not uttered a single falsehood all evening.” She sharply arches one brow. “Not to you.”
She laughs, hearty and bright, then pointedly extracts her hand from his so she can pick up her wineglass. “Come on, Illario, I know the stories. Crows are trained to be charming. Using flattery to disarm and distract.”
“If you truly think I’m trying to disarm and distract you, you probably shouldn’t be drinking the wine.”
She pauses with her wineglass half-way to her lips, gives him a narrow-eyed glare.
“I’m joking!” he laughs, “poisoning the wine is a Viago move, anyway. Not my style.”
“Oh yes? And what is your style?” she asks, taking a few cautious sips of her wine.
“Well.” He leans in, conspiratorial, beckons her forward. “First I would put that Crow seduction training to use, persuade you to follow me somewhere private – the balcony, perhaps, or to one of the suites if I’m feeling bold and you’re particularly… pliant. And then, when we were alone, when you were least expecting in, I would press in close—” He takes a step towards her, until they’re only a hair’s breadth apart. “—and I’d slit that pretty little neck of yours from ear to ear.” He trails a finger along her neck to punctuate his words, reveling in the little gasp that slips loose from her lips when he touches her.
She huffs a little breath of amusement. “And what makes you think I’d follow you somewhere private? What makes you so sure I’d be… pliant?”
“Because you think me handsome,” he says, inclining his head to show her his best side, “and irresistibly charming.”
“Do I now?”
“Absolutely.” He takes a long swig of his whiskey. “I can tell by the way you look at me, by the way your skin flushes so prettily when I’m near.”
She laughs. “Maybe that’s just part of my assassination style. Maybe I’m trying to disarm you. And then, when we’re alone, when you least expect it, I’ll press in close—” She places her palm flat to his chest, lets a little magic crackle on her fingertips, just enough that he can feel the static through his clothes. “—and I’ll stop your heart. Much better than slitting your throat – far less mess to clean up.” There’s a wolfish grin on her face as she leans back to put some more space between them again, lifting her wineglass for another drink.
Mierda, she is fun, he realises with dismay. Rook is not supposed to be fun. She’s supposed to be beautiful. She’s supposed to be an interesting challenge. Eventually, he hopes she’ll be a good fuck. But if she’s fun, he’ll want to spend more time with her and he can’t spend more time with her because he has a birthright to claim and a blood mage to dispose of.
“Dance with me,” he says, keen for an excuse to touch her again.
“No,” she says, placing her now empty wineglass on the bar and making to get up.
“Have another drink?”
“No.”
“Rook—”
“Illario.” She fixes him with a glare. “I’m going home now – thank you for the drink.”
“Let me walk you to the eluvian.”
She shakes her head, the diamond earrings bobbing with the movement. “That won’t be necessary, I know the way. And besides… you haven’t finished your drink.”
She squeezes his shoulder before turning and striding across the floor of the casino with the kind of grace and confidence he normally only sees with Crows. The blue dress sways with every move of her hips and he can’t take his eyes off her until she ascends out of sight up the staircase at the end of the room.
Well, fuck.
Lucanis crumples the moment Illario touches his broach.
It is the oddest feeling, this push-pull of magic as his fingers brush the metal, followed by a sudden flow of sensation that seems to channel through his limbs before leaching out and into Lucanis. He’d always imagined magic to be more… violent, somehow – something that crackled or burnt. But the magic Zara has given him is a silent, slithering thing, oozing through his pores like viscous oil.
He stands, finds it unnervingly comforting to loom over Lucanis’s prone body. It’s been a long time since there was any kind of parity between the two cousins. Lucanis had started to pull ahead in his training from a young age – faster, deadlier, the better assassin, the favoured grandson. But now Lucanis lies dazed and confused on the blood-stained floor of the Chantry basement, a slave not only to the demon that possesses him but also the man who controls the demon.
“Relent,” Illario mutters, hand still clutching the broach on his chest, and he watches in grim satisfaction as Lucanis seems to sag in defeat, like a puppet with its strings cut. He smooths his hands down his chest, flattening the puckers of fabric where Lucanis had grabbed him and pulled him to the ground. While Lucanis lies bruised and beaten and drenched in blood, Illario stands composed and put-together, in control.
Rook staggers forward clumsily, falling to her knees at Lucanis’s side. She presses her hands to his cheeks, calls his name again and again as if trying to snap him out of whatever torpor he’s been forced into. When Lucanis doesn’t respond, her eyes snap to Illario’s, and there’s such venom there he almost flinches.
“What did you do to him?” she asks, voice low and dangerous.
Illario gapes a little in astonishment, floundering for a response – Rook has looked at him with sharp, piercing eyes, sometimes with narrowed, distrustful eyes but never with such open hostility.
“N-nothing,” he stammers, raising his palms in a placating gesture, “I don’t know what happened any better than you.”
“You’re lying!” she shouts as she rises to confront him, placing herself in front of Lucanis in what almost looks like a protective move. “I’m a Tevinter mage, Illario, you think I don’t recognise blood magic when I fucking see it?!
She’s furious, her whole body thrumming with barely contained rage, and there’s a moment where Illario is absolutely certain she’s about to punch him.
Oh Mierda, he realises, she loves him.
Rook is in love with Lucanis.
He can see it in her eyes, beneath the blistering fury, there’s confusion and fear, concern for Lucanis.
He’d spotted Lucanis’s partiality for her almost immediately, Illario has always been good at reading his cousin, but it had never even occurred to him that Rook could ever reciprocate. Rook is supposed to be one more thing that Illario can take from Lucanis – like he’d taken a year of his life, like he’d taken Caterina, like he is going to take the title of First Talon.
But now, with Zara dead, and Rook seemingly out of his grasp, Illario can feel his chest clenching with the prospect that he might not get any of it. He’d been willing to sacrifice his cousin, his brother, for the sake of his ambition – and yet he still might fail.
A pained groan from Lucanis is what finally breaks their standoff, Rook distracted long enough for him to collect his thoughts.
“You have to get him out of here, Rook,” he insists, “Keep him away. From Treviso. From the Crows. He’s a danger to the family.”
“Really, Illario? Because from my perspective, you’re the danger—"
“Rook?” Lucanis croaks, shifting on the floor behind her, trying to push himself up with limbs left leaden by Illario’s magic.
She glares scornfully at Illario for a beat longer before turning her attention back to Lucanis, crouching down and wrapping his arm around her neck so she can leverage him up.
For the briefest moment he considers killing them both right then and there; it would certainly prevent them from interfering with his plans. And he’s unlikely to get an opportunity like this again – both of them so badly injured and worn from the fight. But Rook has too many allies, both back at the Lighthouse and here in Treviso. Killing Rook would make him a target before he’s had a chance to consolidate his power. And while he’d managed to arrange for Lucanis’s death at the hands of Zara Renata and her cronies, he’s not sure he could actually kill Lucanis himself. After all, despite everything, Lucanis is family.
He can deal with them later, once he’s First Talon.
A strange feeling falls over him as he watches them limp away, arms adjoined – an odd sense of loss, a mourning for something he’d never even had the chance to possess.
Illario is reading when Lucanis enters the room, some profoundly tedious tome about the importance of Antiva’s waterways in the development of the trade economy. But with only a handful of books available to him, all equally as boring, there’s little Illario can do given his current state of captivity except sit around and do nothing – or begrudgingly learn about the intricacies of canal construction.
Lucanis hesitates at the door for a moment before crossing the room and joining Illario in the small seating area near the fireplace. It is a comfortable enough suite that Illario has been granted, deep in the depths of one of Viago’s mansions – an ornately carved wooden bed along one wall, two wing-back chairs next to a tiled hearth, a desk with its modest selection of reading materials. There’s even a window. But the richness of the furnishings does not make him any less of a prisoner, any less of a traitor who needs to be locked up for the safety of others. And, in all likelihood, his safety as well – there will be more than a few Crows eager to see him dead after his public humiliation in the Dellamorte Opera House.
Illario feigns interest in his reading as Lucanis takes the seat next to him, pointedly ignoring his cousin as he slowly turns a page. It’s a petty form of protest, unlikely to achieve anything, but Illario would like to make the First Talon wait.
“Are they treating you well?” Lucanis asks after a long, heavy silence.
Illario turns another page, still not lifting his head. “And you would care if they were not?”
“Of course I would care,” Lucanis replies with an exasperated huff.
“Oh, how very generous of you.”
More silence. Illario turns another page.
“If I didn’t care,” Lucanis ventures, “you would be in prison right now.”
“And this is any better?”
Lucanis shifts in his chair, his growing irritation clear in the lines of his posture, the hard set of his jaw. “I assure you, you would not have such fine accommodations in Velabanchel. But Viago is willing to grant you whatever comforts you would like, within reason. And, in time—”
“In time—what?” Illario snaps, head turning to finally look at his cousin. “In time you might deign to let me free? And then what? What am I supposed to do? I’m a traitor, Lucanis. I’m not a Crow anymore – and without the Crows, I’m nothing. You want me to just… languish around Villa Dellamorte like some sort of house pet?”
“We’ll—you’ll find something.”
Illario turns his attention back to the book, bites off a terse, “oh fuck off, Lucanis.”
He expects Lucanis will leave – wants him to. Instead Lucanis just sits there, silent, expression schooled into infuriating calmness. From the corner of his eyes, Illario watches Lucanis pluck a speck of lint from his otherwise impeccable black trousers. He doesn’t recognise the outfit, wonders whether it’s new. Lucanis is First Talon now after all, he’ll need a wardrobe to match his rank. Caterina’s jewels, Teia’s gowns, Viago’s cane – they are just as important to a Talon’s persona as their ruthlessness and reputation.
After another long silence, Lucanis rubs his face with a sigh. “Is this—” He gestures between them. “—how it will always be between us now?”
“Probably,” is Illario’s flippant response. But then when he looks at Lucanis again, sees how tired he looks, frayed at the edges, he feels something soften. He shuts his book, he wasn’t reading it anyway, turns more fully in his chair to face Lucanis. “Do you ever think… do you ever think about how things could have been different?” Illario asks.
“Different how?”
“If Caterina had never found out about you, about the Ossuary. If – when Rook came looking for a Crow – Caterina had sent me instead. Would I be the hero, saving Treviso from a dragon attack? Freeing the city from The Butcher? Would I be First Talon?” There’s a pause, then, just to be cruel, “would I be the one fucking Rook every night?”
Lucanis bristles at that, just as expected, and Illario’s lips curl into a petty little sneer. But the affect is short-lived, Lucanis almost immediately drawing his features into that same cool calmness as before.
“No,” Lucanis says, “because Caterina never would have sent you with Rook. You don’t have the right skillset. You can’t kill a dragon with charm, Illario, or fight the elven gods with clever words. If you had gone with Rook, you would be dead.”
“How little you think of me.”
“Can you blame me? You tried to kill me, twice. And failed, twice.”
Now it’s Illario’s turn to bristle. “I think I’m done talking to you.”
There’s a resigned sigh as Lucanis rises from the chair. “It’ll probably be a few weeks until I can visit again,” he says, buttoning up the front of his jacket. “We’ve tracked the gods to an island north of Rivain. This’ll all be over soon, one way or another.”
Illario waves him away dismissively. Why should he care when Lucanis will next visit? Lucanis shakes his head, walks across the room with quick, long strides, clearly eager to leave. It’s only when Lucanis’s hand is poised over the door handle that Illario calls, “send Rook my regards.”
There’s a pause – Illario waits for Lucanis to take the bait – instead he opens the door, walks through and shuts it with a slam of finality.
Illario is left alone.