faderift | closed.

The appearance of Bastien is—surprising, and it shows in Marcus' expression when he looks to him. As if he'd imagined this rescue being a small contingent of mages alone, or just simply he's only ever encountered this man in quiet offices and hallways. As soon as that happens, though, a sharper focus pushes through the haze, even before Bastien asks his question. Recognition.

Julius returns. The awkward shifting of space to allow him re-entry. Marcus lifts his hands so that the locks can be worked. A sharp exhale as the first one cracks open and drops, all relief. When the second is done, he bends his knee so the more negligent loop of chain around his ankle, the lock that fastens it, can be undone too.

Fitcher. The clerk, is what his mind produces, at the same time as Tsenka says the informant.

Anger beneath the fog, dampened by exhaustion. More of a sickly churn than anything helpful. He looks back to Bastien, shakes his head, says, "No," with quiet venom.

Bastien shifts a few inches to accommodate Julius' return, tips his head in acknowledgment of Tsenka's connection, and at Marcus' venomous no gives his shoulders a slant and his jaw an angle that convey hedging inconclusion.

"I am not ruling her in," definitively. They'd likely need more proof than the word of a self-interested man trying to explain his way out of an abduction. "Our new friend Arlyn says they received word from us that you were some kind of traitor. They believed they were doing this at our request. They'd had letters."

Her merry wit, her company at the theater. Her sharp eyes and aim. Her access to records. There is a feeling he is not allowing himself to feel. It's premature. It's unhelpful.

"Does SF mean anything to you? Is there anyone among your contacts or old company—" A less tidy explanation than the same person within Riftwatch, using the same methods as before, but he wants the stone turned. "—who might want you gone?"

Edited 2022-07-14 18:15 (UTC)

Julius's expression could be charitably characterized as "bleak," but if he has thoughts on Fitcher's candidacy for the newly discovered spy (and Marcus, at least, knows him well enough to suspect he does), he's holding his tongue. Bastien asked Marcus, specifically. Besides, Julius has nothing of use to contribute on the matter of "SF" or Marcus's particular enemies. For the time being, he occupies himself with the lock on Marcus's ankle and with keeping his expression at least somewhat level.

“None of ours,” Tsenka objects, straight away, and it's maybe more naïve than someone who's spent as long as she has in a Tevene dungeon should still be capable of but—

but what the fuck would the point of have been of all that time, if.

There's a shade of dismissal in the way Marcus chooses to focus on what Julius is doing just as Bastien says he isn't ruling Fitcher in. But only a shade. Distracted, given everything, synapses firing across memories. Silently sharing office space, comparing letters and records. Asking for assistance. Testing some theory out, during a particularly talkative afternoon.

Already simmering. He watches Julius' face, tips his head a little in some attempt to make eye contact. What is it.

The chain slithers free. Tsenka's response, for what it's worth, appears to match anything he might have said first, and so he diverts focus, intent to get the fuck out! of this transport. Gripping the edge of the carriage, moving, throwing a leg over the edge to step down onto terra firma. Edge of his breathing hoarse, briefly, as the world spins. He holds onto the other door, casts a scathing (blurry) look to where the Templars have been rounded up. Like naughty sheep.

Back to Bastien. Focusing. "It wasn't anyone outside. It never was."

Edited 2022-07-15 09:57 (UTC)

Bastien stands back from the door to allow Marcus out, and Julius and Tsenka if they follow behind. He nods; hope evaporating. Which is good. Hope is stupid. This is why people in his erstwhile line of work don't have friends.

Now it's his attention that turns away. To Derrica and Seeker Hart, first, where they're discussing a plan he can't hear. To Flint beyond. (Where's Edgard? Worried, probably, wherever he is, and due to be wrecked when he finds out the man he killed thought he was helping them.) While he looks, he's thinking: who needs to know, who doesn't. The ways it might benefit them if it does not become common knowledge in the Gallows, just yet, that they had a chance to speak to any of Marcus' captors. Maybe not even that Marcus was found alive.

In the meantime, there's a silence that could be filled with someone's unspoken thoughts.

Julius does climb out of the wagon once Marcus has gotten himself outside. He hesitates, even after Marcus's clear unspoken question from earlier. But eventually the silence lingers long enough that he says: "I can't claim to have suspected her of anything like this, before, but I can think of ... times come to mind where she was just curious about Riftwatch's mages. Their politics, their war records. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but it would." Fit. It would fit, in a way that makes his stomach drop.

I've never met this woman is sufficiently unhelpful in literally every direction that Tsenka manages not to say it out loud, immediately—

instead, “Wildervale was a complete set up,” she surmises. “I said to the heads, this had to be about Marcus. Him in particular. The way it was done makes no sense otherwise.”

When Julius emerges after him, Marcus isn't shy about curling a hand around his elbow, as much affection as it is the masculine urge to avoid losing his balance. His focus is off, now looking towards where the one who isn't dressed all in plate is sitting nearby, separated out from the herd. He feels the urge to move in that direction like a full-bodied shudder. Imagines dragging him to his feet, or down onto the ground.

It would be very embarrassing for everyone if he tried, and he swallows down that specific instinct, tuning back into what Julius is saying. What Tsenka adds.

His fingers grip a little harder.

"She needs questioning," spoken in a tone that suggests she needs more than to be merely questioned, but perhaps it's an agreeable start.

Julius' observation settles around his shoulders like a particularly weighty cloak. Tsenka's theory—it makes sense. Whether because of Marcus' politics or because of his particularly interested sniffing-around for the source of the leak they'd sprung. The pool of candidates who had been with Riftwatch long enough, who didn't have verifiable pro-mage sympathies, who had access and opportunity was already so small. Foolish joins the other unhelpful feelings he refuses to actually feel right now.

"She does," he agrees. "And it might be to our benefit if she does not know what has happened here yet."

Maybe. He doesn't know. But announcements can't be taken back, and he glances around at the three mages for who might or might not have brought a sending crystal.

"If you must contact Madame de Cedoux," to make concessions for love, "make sure she keeps it to herself for now. I have to go back," to Derrica and Tiffany, he indicates with a head tip, and he strides away without any of his standard polite and friendly nonsense.

"She can hold her peace," Julius says, probably unnecessarily, to Bastien. Then, to Marcus, "We should contact her when you feel up to it. Tsenka let me speak to her on the way, but obviously she's..." Marcus can probably supply the lost end of the thought easily enough.

(If he feels a bit foolish himself, well, it can wait in the queue behind angry and relieved and exhausted.)

"And Tsenka is right," he adds, of the nature of the event. "If this wasn't about Marcus, they'd have made sure I was dead, if I wasn't worth capturing. I couldn't figure out why they didn't make sure, before. But if they thought they were working for us, subduing but not killing someone in a leadership position, that fits better."

Arlyn could be lying, of course, but it was seeming increasingly unlikely.

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