Vale did not leave the next morning, as he'd claimed he would.
"The weather," he explained over breakfast, gesturing vaguely toward a sky that was, as far as anyone present could tell, perfectly clear and entirely unremarkable. "I'd hate to travel in it. A few more days, if you'll indulge an old ally's caution."
Kane's patience, already worn thin from three days of performance and forced civility, frayed visibly at the edges. Wren watched him grip his coffee cup with the particular restraint of a man doing complex arithmetic on how many more days he could survive this charade without breaking something.
The confrontation came that evening, in the manor's private library, where Vale had cornered Kane alone under the pretense of discussing border tariffs neither of them had any real inter
