Rivena did not flinch under the question. If anything, she wore the faint boredom of a woman asked to account for something beneath her.
"I was handling a private affair that could not be abandoned halfway through," she said, her voice smooth and unhurried, offering the hall nothing it could take hold of. "Once it was finished, I came straight back."
"And you did not think to send word." Valttair did not phrase it as a question.
"A message would have put the whole thing at risk," she answered without hesitation. "Some work only holds together as long as no one knows it is being done. I judged it safer to keep quiet."
There was a grain of truth in it, enough to give the lie a little honest cover to hide behind. Trafalgar did not buy a word of the rest, and plainly, neither did the man at the head of the table.
Valttair let her excuse hang a while before he took it apart.
