The words were mild. The tone was the tone of a man suggesting they step away from the noise to have a cleaner conversation.
Remus Santora looked at him for one long, flat moment.
Then he stood.
The standing of a large man who has decided to do something and is doing it — no preliminary motion, no push-back from the chair, simply standing, the way a piece of furniture becomes occupied and then becomes unoccupied, the transition clean.
His hand rested on the pommel of his sword.
Not drawing. Not threatening. The hand of a man whose hand lived on a pommel the way other men's hands lived on cups or tables — habitually, neutrally, because that was where hands went.
"More convenient," he said.
His voice was deep. Not performed deep — the natural low register of a large chest producing sound efficiently. The voice of a man who had stopped using more volume than necessary sometime in his thirties.
He moved toward the side door.
Viktor watched him go.
Then turned.
To Helviana.
