Irritation sparked within her. “Why not?”

“I have no right to your kindness and no leverage. I can’t die here.”

“Oho, believe me. You very much can.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I never know what you mean,” she said sourly. “You’re the most deliberately opaque person I’ve ever met in my life.”

A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Because I can’t trust you.”

“Meanwhile, I’m supposed to trust you’re not lying to me?”

“You could always walk away from this,” he said guardedly. “Whether my information is good or not, you lose nothing.”

“Of course I lose!” Wren grabbed his collar, pulling him closer until she could see the flinty edge in his dark eyes. Good. He has some fight in him yet. “One of the people who disappeared was my friend. He was in my unit, and one day, he never came back from patrol. There was nothing left behind. No evidence. Nothing. Like he just stepped out of existence.”

Hal appeared unmoved.

“If it’s true that Vesria isn’t behind this, then both of our countries are on the line. If I can’t convince Isabel your people aren’t responsible, she will go to war. Six people are already gone. Does that mean anything to you? If you die before you tell me what you know, how many more will we lose?”

“Up-front information will do you no good.” Hal pried her fingers loose from his collar. “I deserted because no one would dispatch me. I pursued this lead alone. If you believe your queen will sanction an investigation here—or that Cernos will admit a unit of soldiers into their country—then you’re more naïve than you seem.”

They were locked together, his fingers still curled around her wrist. Her pulse beat wildly against his thumb. “What’re you saying?”

“If you take this information to the queen, you will be laughed out of the North Tower. No one will believe you.”

“Then what good is it? You misled me!”

“I promised you information, and you will have it. Whether it’s useful to you or not is incidental.”

“Oh, I see. Only you can solve this case. Everyone else in Danu and Vesria is too small-minded and corrupt to figure it out, and if I let you die, the solution to this case will perish with you. How convenient. How trapped you’ve left me.”

“Yes,” he said curtly, if not a little exasperatedly. “That’s exactly correct.”

How stubborn could he be? He was willing to risk everything, and it made her so … so angry. If he would not see reason, he would take Byers to the grave with him. It emptied her out of everything but a cold, mean core of desperation.