Wapun Meadow If I was out of my body you would see the truth

protect them all. the temptation rose immediately to snort at the mere suggestion – but they had a truly unfortunate amount of practice with self control when this kind of thing was happening around them, and derg was not joking. as long as renard had known him, he never joked. which just made the whole thing worse.

what did donovan want from them? renard had been under the impression that it was an alliance to deceive everyone else into thinking the saints had more strength than they did – but maybe they were placing too much of their own logic into the grandmaster's empty head. and in the meantime there was nyra doing her level best to turn this into an incident, like she couldn't see the rising hostility in the woman she was speaking to; in the meantime the tension in the air was palpable, and they couldn't believe derg and donovan didn't notice.

though it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't.

fuck, if they wanted to be particularly doubtful about this – and donovan being donovan, why wouldn't they – he had probably fucked someone here, and that was the only reason why they were all playing nice right now.

uncomplaining when derg nudged them forward despite how ridiculous it was, the idea that they were all here to make nice, renard inclined their head. like the silver-furred blade edged closer to their side, they watched, and said nothing.