And in the beginning of their chat over dinner, that fear had only continued to grow. The welcomed news of Nabi’s freedom as well as Ghoa’s own release from her interim duties with the delivery of a new alchemist had quickly become overshadowed by a shift in topic. Elam had sought her opinion in that vague, yet pointed way of his that made her skin crawl and her heart race, knowing not if she was being spoken to as a likeminded co-conspirator or as a person being tested under pressure.

Had she ever witnessed a person in their line of work succumb to the weakness of sentimentality, he had asked her. What drove such a foolish thing, and what would she choose to do to a person who had betrayed her so?

It had almost seemed to her as if he were handing over the rope and asking her to tie her own noose.

Tread carefully, the Xaela had told herself, so very carefully. And so her answers had swayed to the value of mercy, to logically capitalizing off of a victory rather than submitting to pride. Given no option but cooperation or death, she had argued, and even a proven traitor would become the most loyal of pawns. 

Did she believe that in earnest? Not in the slightest. A smart traitor with their head resting on the block would be doing everything within their power to escape their shackles, not making amends with their would-be executioner. But such hardly made for a compelling plea from the gallows.

He had agreed with her assessment, and onward their conversation had marched forward with talk of new business. Talk of the fighting pits that he had set his sights upon and the sponsors funneling coin into it, which he wished for her to charm and win over to his side just as she had done with Aritake Yumishi. Though he had phrased it as an offer to return to their former arrangement – “If you want to at least entertain those responsibilities?” – she had taken it that ‘No’ was not an option. Whether or not she was indeed the traitor he spoke of, she felt that the timing was too poor to step away from the table safely now.

But then, what had started for her as a tense exchange had suddenly become much lighter with the revelation that her betrayal wasn’t the one to which he had been alluding. Relief had flooded over her upon learning that there had been another, one who had risked Elam Grave’s wrath for Nabi’s sake. A braver person that Ghoa herself could claim to be, at least, considering that she had shied away from the same thing despite the guilt she felt for the hand she had played in the whole debacle.

As soon as that initial flood of relief hsd washed over her, her mind began to work over the possibilities of what this could mean, of how this could be turned around and manipulated. Perhaps she could use this somehow to secure her own safe and clean break from the business she found herself entangled in? More than that, a part of her – however deep down – felt some degree of indebtedness to this other unknown traitor for fixing a problem that she had helped to create, that she had been too fearful to try to resolve herself, and who had ultimately taken the fall for it.

Nor could she have asked for a more opportune time for Elam to show even the slightest chink in his usually untouchable armor. All it had taken was a couple of glasses of sake too many and a bit of flattery, and he had fixed her with the same long lingering looks that she had prized from the Doman nobles he had paid her to charm and seduce. Even more, he had all but admitted it aloud.

“Petite and beautiful, just like her. But where I want to tear the throat of the doe to see how it bleeds, you, I’d rather–”

Though he had cut himself short, he hadn’t needed to finish the sentence for Ghoa to know exactly what was meant. He didn’t need to spell it out in detail for that very important piece of information to sink in. To practically place a weapon into her palm, and to show her right where she could bury it if only she could get herself close enough for an opportunity to present itself.