“All right,” Raffin said, “all right. We’re going in circles.”

Katsa sat back, seething.

“Katsa,” Raffin said, “the information isn’t worth the risk to you or to the Council. Nor, I think, is it worth the violence.”

She sighed, inwardly. He was right, of course.

“Perhaps it’ll be worth it someday in the future,” Raffin said. “But for now, Grandfather Tealiff is safe, and we’ve seen no sign from Murgon or from anyone else that he’s being targeted again. Po, if there are steps you wish to take, that’s your affair, though I’d ask you to discuss it with us first.”

“I must think on it,” Po said.

“Then the matter is closed for now,” Raffin said, “until we learn something new, or until Po comes to a decision. Oll? Is there anything else on the table?”

Oll began to speak then of a Westeran village that had met a Nanderan raiding party with a pair of catapults, given to them by a Westeran lord who was friend to the Council. The Nanderan raiders had fled, thinking they were being attacked by an army. There was laughter at the table, and Oll began another story, but Katsa’s thoughts wandered to Murgon and his dungeons, to the Sunderan forests that likely held the secrets of the kidnapping. She felt Po’s gaze, and she glanced at him across the table. His eyes were on her, but he didn’t see her. His mind was elsewhere. He got that look sometimes, when they sat together after their fights.

She watched his face. The cut on his forehead was no more than a thin red line now. It would leave a scar. She wondered if that would rankle his Lienid vanity, but then she smiled within herself. He wasn’t really vain. He hadn’t cared a bit when she’d blackened his eye. He’d done nothing to hide the gash on his forehead. And besides, no vain person would choose to fight her, day after day. No vain person would put his body at the mercy of her hands.

His sleeves were rolled to his elbows again. His manners were so careless. Her eyes rested on the shadows in the hollows of his neck, then rose to his face again. She supposed he would have reason to be vain. He was handsome enough, as handsome as Giddon or Raffin, with his straight nose and the set of his mouth, and his strong shoulders. And even those gleaming eyes. Even they might be considered handsome.

His eyes came back into focus then and looked into hers. And then something mischievous in his eyes, and a grin. Almost as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, exactly what she’d decided about his claims to vanity. Katsa’s face closed, and she glowered at him.

The meeting ended, and chairs scraped. Raffin pulled her aside to speak of something. She was grateful for the excuse to turn away. She wouldn’t see Po again until their next fight. And the fights always returned her to herself.