"Court gossip is hardly leverage. I have no idea what you are referring to. Please excuse me, Princess."
"Court gossip is what small men call intelligence they can't control. If Lord Solandris receives an envelope from a mysterious sender containing evidence, you lose your position, your title, and your access to every Dragon Lord and Keep in Velkaris. Unless you and him have a prior arrangement about his wife. I looked into that." She paused. "You don't."
"What do you want?"
"Who was the man you were just speaking with?"
Silence followed.
Then Marek laughed.
Blair's heartbeat didn't change. Her breathing didn't change. But the air in the corridor did, thickening into something that tasted like ozone and intent, and Blair knew with the certainty of a woman who had grown up around predators that the next three seconds were going to decide whether she walked away from this corridor or was carried.
