How perceptive of you, Empress, [is said so blithely that is hardly counts as a compliment. The cane, with its work done and her seated safely beyond reach, is returned to its original position of hanging off the chair arm by its handle.]

It is indeed borrowed. The High Mage evidently didn't see the point in bringing my usual stick along. More's the pity. It and I had something of an understanding.

[Maybe it's a joke. Maybe it isn't; maybe where he comes from, objects are all things with sympathy. He says so with such a disagreeable breed of humor that it's difficult to tell what is genuine and what isn't. Yet for all his bared teeth, he is patient with her management of the tray and the cups and the pouring of the tea into them.]

I don't travel well. Which is evidently a problem the mages of Thorne are unused to accounting for when they pull people from their Well, hence my delay. I've been squandering my debut in the care of their healers. Do you think you could tell if I were lying to you right now?

[He smiles at her, all veneered with grace, and helps himself to the nearer of the two cups.]