Lenore's stress increases every step that she takes into the town, more when she sends Gideon away, more again when she enters the mayor's house and feels her skin prickling with dread. It doesn't seem organized enough to be a trap. There are too many open exits, not enough soldiers. If it's a trap, it's a bad one, poorly planned and poorly researched, ignorant of the real abilities of vampires. But what makes her paranoid is that it's a gambit of some kind. It doesn't have to be a good trap in order to successfully end her life or that of some of her people.
There's slimy diplomacy to wade through, the most exhausting kind. He doesn't want to make deals, he isn't trying to win her over. He's just lying to her face, with a shit-eating smile like he thinks she's too stupid to see through it or just is so convinced of his own superiority that he can't see the holes in his own arguments.
They only have a few hours before dawn, so triggering anything now is a risk, but she's all the more worried that if she waits until dawn it will be the opportunity they're waiting for to trigger their own plans. So she signals Greta with a twitch of her finger, and her maid doubles over with a cry of pain, providing the excuse Lenore needs to ask for a healer. Except that the man they bring to the guest rooms is an apothecary who looks panicked at the thought of tending to a pregnant woman, and Lenore feels like she's going to explode with frustration and anxiety. Who delivers the babies in this town? Why wasn't that person brought? The apothecary only starts to squirm under her questions, and when Lenore storms back out to demand the same of the self-made mayor, she gets only lies and evasions.
She knows that she's panicking. She has no further plans. She feels like they can't afford to wait.
Zohreh and her soldiers make quick work of the mayor and his men, and then Esfir hangs back with the majority of the soldiers, holding the mayor's house like it's a fortress, while Zohreh, Lenore, and a handful of guards move swiftly to the jail. One of Lenore's soldiers snatches the keys off the guard, holding both guards at swordpoint while Lenore yanks the jail door open and Zohreh tosses Gideon's sheathed sword to her.
"Gideon?" Lenore demands, demeanor like a cat with its fur all puffed up with panic. "What have you got for me?"
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There's slimy diplomacy to wade through, the most exhausting kind. He doesn't want to make deals, he isn't trying to win her over. He's just lying to her face, with a shit-eating smile like he thinks she's too stupid to see through it or just is so convinced of his own superiority that he can't see the holes in his own arguments.
They only have a few hours before dawn, so triggering anything now is a risk, but she's all the more worried that if she waits until dawn it will be the opportunity they're waiting for to trigger their own plans. So she signals Greta with a twitch of her finger, and her maid doubles over with a cry of pain, providing the excuse Lenore needs to ask for a healer. Except that the man they bring to the guest rooms is an apothecary who looks panicked at the thought of tending to a pregnant woman, and Lenore feels like she's going to explode with frustration and anxiety. Who delivers the babies in this town? Why wasn't that person brought? The apothecary only starts to squirm under her questions, and when Lenore storms back out to demand the same of the self-made mayor, she gets only lies and evasions.
She knows that she's panicking. She has no further plans. She feels like they can't afford to wait.
Zohreh and her soldiers make quick work of the mayor and his men, and then Esfir hangs back with the majority of the soldiers, holding the mayor's house like it's a fortress, while Zohreh, Lenore, and a handful of guards move swiftly to the jail. One of Lenore's soldiers snatches the keys off the guard, holding both guards at swordpoint while Lenore yanks the jail door open and Zohreh tosses Gideon's sheathed sword to her.
"Gideon?" Lenore demands, demeanor like a cat with its fur all puffed up with panic. "What have you got for me?"