The Basin, Vienda
broad-clocking-daylight on the 15th of Bethas, 2719
Rhys hadn't been dampening his glamour out of fear or frustration, he hadn't been gathering the mona to himself because somehow the reporter had struck a nerve—no—he'd been stretching his personal limitations magically by learning to make himself less obvious, less noticeable, less oppressive with the rebellious weight of his very not-wick-like field. It was good practice, here in the Dives, and one his galdori in uniform peers didn't give a damn about doing. It was a curious tactic, obviously, and the Inspector wasn't a dumbersed recruit fresh off of Numbrey's training yard, either. He knew what he was doing, and he'd played these sorts of games with informants, willing and unwilling, for a few years now. He didn't need to irritate the barkeep with the strength of his glamour here in this little hole in the wall far from Uptown and he didn't need to tell a godsbedamned human a fucking thing about his feelings when the newspaper man was clearly used to working with galdorkind and probably knew what to sense for.
Some things were just played better close to the chest.
And Rhys' chest had been shattered once enough already. Recently at that.
The Sergeant smirked, watching the other man for his own tells, always curious about non-magical beings who couldn't express their sixth sense with anything other than their eyes, their faces, their body language, and their tone of voice.
Mister Adam Spencer, reporter for the Vienda Weekly, was a confident thing, sure of himself for a fucking human, and used to the comfortable life of one who'd been given more responsibility than he probably deserved. The tall blond could understand that. He lived it, too. Just as dangerously.
"My rank in the Seventen says your business is technically always my business, whether I care or not. And I don't unless you're a threat to what's mine or myself. Would you like me to start quoting statutes and listing court cases that cite precedence of this fact of Anaxi law or perhaps you'd like to read them yourself?" He took a long swig of his Fireflight, blue eyes wrinkling at their corners with unashamed amusement, but there was a tension in his shoulders and in the way his knee still bounced under the table as if he was a steam motor that simply couldn't be shut off lest he never get started again, as if he was ready to run at a moment's notice.
He called Mister Saunders Gale, and he called them brunno. He called Mister Spencer Adam. He'd asked to be called Rhys. No one had any common courtesy anymore, Anaxas so gollywashed with political drama that a man couldn't have a drink with another man without questioning whether it was going to turn into jail time or a beating.
Well. This might turn into both the way it was going.
"I don't see what in all of Vita you could know about Captain D'Arthe that's going to make a bit of difference, but fine. I'll humor you." He rolled the bottle between his fingers against the tabletop, not leaning into listen but instead moving his free hand in the most subtle of motions, his glamour shifting and warming, filling the small space their table made as if a child was suddenly blowing up a balloon. The air felt thick for a breath and then the sound of the barkeep putting pint glasses away sounded fainter, as if heard through a thick curtain.
Casting silence without verbal Monite was a weaker use of the spell but one Inspectors like himself learned to utilize quickly, and he didn't even bother to draw attention to what he'd just done even as the momentary press of his glamour felt as though it was retreating again towards his person, leaving the extra quiet in its wake.
And then the dark-haired reporter said a few sentences together that Rhys wasn't entirely sure he'd heard correctly in spite of his small bit of magic. Blue eyes narrowed, hardened into fallen pieces of sky, sharp and angry. The glamour that had rolled away so gently like the tide didn't come back into focus again even though the young Valentin shifted in his seat, leaning toward him now with all the threat of a well-trained predator let out of his cage.
This was a trap. It had to be.
This was just another set up and he'd just walked into it.
Only this time, oh this time, would he live to go home?
Panic made his ears ring. Sweat rolled between his shoulder blades.
Rage roiled deep inside.
"I'm sorry. Hold on—did you just say Captain D'Arthe has planned a bombing? To blame on the Resistance? Like the Riots were blamed on the Resistance, too, even though every godsbedamned person who's got half a brain knows it was the tribal wicks who set the Dives on fire? Fuck you."
A boot came to rest on Adam's chair and Rhys looked as though he was ready to give it a hard shove, coiled tightly like a viper ready to strike and full of emotions that were impossible to read on his scarred face. He paused to take a long, deep draught of his Fireflight as if that would hold back all the words that rose to the surface of his thoughts, that clawed against the roof of his mouth to be free. He stared at the human, searched his face, and resisted the urge to reach over and curl fingers into his dark hair, to smash his face into the table, and to simply get up and leave.
He thought it, though. He thought it through.
"You're full of chroveshit." He hissed, words revealing both a deep hurt and a deep paranoia, a sudden glimpse of unspoken trauma triggered by immediate shock and incredulous disbelief, months of pain and a betrayal he didn't know how to come back from, "Was this just some ploy put together for me? Gods—I wouldn't put it past anyone anymore. If not, well, you've got a real hearing problem, Mister Spencer. I never said the Resistance wasn't capable, not at all. I know exactly what they're capable of. Fucking ignorance goes both ways, doesn't it? And you picked the wrong damn Inspector to play innocent with—"
He didn't want to trust a word of it, but at the same time, very real fear ignited every fiber of his being. Rhys gathered himself carefully and attempted to put on all the appearances of carrying on a normal conversation behind their fragile veil of magically reinforced quiet but it was very clear that he was not okay, that this conversation was not okay, and that he trusted Adam less for his subtle insults and gentle jibes than he did for the dangerous information he'd so casually whispered into conversation:
"—I like that you wield Damen's name and dangle this little tidbit like you own it, like it's yours, like you can do something about it. It's charming. It's keeping me from arresting you for false witness ... I think. You don't have a date but you know he's connected. You don't have a location, either, then, do you? Just, you know, anywhere in Anaxas will do? Vienda? Brunnhold? Plugit? If you were hoping that I'd be surprised to hear Captain D'Arth's name on the idea, you're wrong. This just proves what I already know."
Rhys wanted to throw up. He hid behind the dark amber bottle for another swig and then pointed a trembling finger around the neck at the reporter's chest,
"You think I'm just another golly who doesn't give a damn, and I get that. It's an easy mistake to make because I have four snaps and a uniform at home. You don't know me from the High Judge, and, well, I don't blame you for making all the plumb fair assumptions. But if you want to stop anything, if you want to really find out what's going on, you'd better think hard about how you go about sharing your secrets, ersehole." It wasn't as though the young Valentin had anyone he could trust other than Charity, other than Gale—could he trust his sister? He didn't know how not to.
He couldn't trust his Seventen peers. He couldn't trust galdori he'd gone to school with.
Gods, what was the point? What did Adam really want?
"Now, were you just looking for a confessional and mistook me for an Everine or did you want to start some countermeasures with some good old fashioned dirt on ye kov the Co-Captain? Because, honestly, I'm not sure what you're telling me this for other than you know my name from some article on Valentin vs D'Arthe you read in that other paper you don't work for. He's connected to a lot more than some rumor of a bombing you've heard from someone else who probably heard from someone else, I can tell you that much. Do you even vet your informants for the papers, let alone before you spill their nonsense at an Inspector for a few juicy truths about drugs and corruption in our fair capitol?"