He stared in surprise. He'd assumed the role she had expected of him without even realizing it. He sat straight and glanced at Tattersail. She now looked nervous, drawing her hands beneath the table. He waited until their gazes locked and held before he turned to the Adjunct.

'In so far as she knows it, the sorceress speaks the truth,' he said. 'Her speculations were genuine, although concerning the dynamics of magic I'm at a loss. Perhaps High Mage Tayschrenn could comment on that.'

Lorn seemed vaguely disappointed with Toc's evaluation, but she nodded anyway and said, 'Accepted, then. High Mage?'

Tayschrenn released a slow breath. 'Accurate,' he said. 'Speculation is sound.'

Toc refilled his goblet. The first course was removed almost untouched, but as the second course arrived everyone turned their full attention to it and conversation ceased. Toc ate slowly, avoiding Tattersail's eyes, though he sensed them upon him time and again. He wondered at his own actions: deceiving the Adjunct to the Empress, the High Mage and the High Fist all in one shot struck him as rash, if not suicidal. And his reasons for doing so were not entirely rational, which made it all the more distressing.

The 2nd had a long, bloody history. More times than Toc could count someone had come through for someone else whatever the odds. And, more often than not, it had been the mage cadre. He'd been there on the plain outside Pale, and he'd watched with a thousand others the cadre being torn apart, hopelessly outmatched. That kind of waste didn't sit well with the 2nd. And, though he was a Claw, the faces that surrounded him, the faces that looked upon him in hope, despair, and – at times – fatal resignation, those faces had been mirrors of his own, and they defied the Claw at every turn. The years in the Claw where feeling and caring had been systematically assailed, those years failed to withstand the day-in, day-out reality that was the 2nd Army.

This night, and with his words, Toc had given something back to Tattersail, not just for her but for the cadre. It didn't matter if she understood, and he knew she must be feeling bewildered by his actions; none of that mattered. What he'd done he'd done for himself.

He sat up. Now that's odd, he thought, my wound's stopped itching.

Feeling light-headed, Tattersail wobbled every now and then as she walked down the hall towards the door to her room. She knew it wasn't the wine. With her nerves as frayed as they were, that fine vintage had tasted like water, and had had as much effect.