The line hangs in the air long enough to tell me more than any answer could.
The white-haired man keeps his face composed, elegant, almost administrative. The girl behind him didn't get the same training. She hunches her shoulders, presses her hands against her own rumpled clothes, and lowers her eyes.
The room is too clean for the Red Squid Slums. That makes everything worse.
"I believe there's been a misunderstanding."
"Usually," I say, glancing at the side door they came through, "misunderstandings don't leave smeared lipstick and a trembling Drowned behind a public official."
He goes still.
The first strike landed where it needed to. Not in the pride, not yet. In the calculation.
