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XXV / i want to tell you this story without having to be in it
Along the way, there is a tentative sort of routine in the Little Palace as the days get longer and the heat increases while summer begins to arrive. It's the same, somewhat subduing sort of complacency that sets in whenever Vera is in Os Alta.
She isn't sure what to think of it. How easy it is to become complacent here, even with the threat of the Darkling looming over them. Even when she is going to the war room with the other elected members of their little council.
Even now, sitting with her arms folded in front of her abdomen right smack in the middle of their meeting, after discussing the terms and wording of a possible pardon for Grisha for a near-hour long, numb numbing eternity, Vera isn't quite sure why she is here. From Alina's point of view, maybe, she gets it. But from the other Grisha's? She doesn't think they can stand her presence. Either, they're disgusted or terrified by her.
Respect, Fedyor had called it last night when they'd talked and she'd pointed the issue out. They might fear you or dislike you for whatever number of reasons they can come up with but they all respect you one way or another.
Vera isn't sure she believes him.
She isn't sure about a lot of things these days.
Across from her Zoya is making pretty eyes at Mal every few minutes, and while Vera is half convinced it's just to rile Alina up and play into the front she gives everyone here, her fingers are twitching from the effort it takes to not reach over the table and wrap her hands around Zoya's pretty neck and strangle the Squaller to death.
(She doesn't because she knows. Vera knows about Liliyana and Lada and she sees the grief and the betrayal and the absolute encompassing pain in Zoya's eyes when the other woman thinks nobody is looking and she knows it's visible because Zoya is so tired of it all. She knows because Zoya is her own mirror. Her pain is Vera's pain, their grief and the betrayal from the man they'd trusted absolutely is the same. So, she stays still and keeps her mouth shut.)
Next to Zoya, Fedyor leans forward with a frown. "It's troubling that he's avoided capture for so long," he points out, voicing Vera's own thoughts, and a small crease forms between her eyebrows at the idea that the Apparat is still at large— and none of them have any idea where to find him.
It makes her skin feel like ants are crawling beneath it.
Sergei turns to Alina. "Has he tried to contact you?"
"No," Alina says slowly.
The Heartrender looks wholly unconvinced.
"He's been spotted in Kerskii and Ryevost," Fedyor points out. "He shows up out of nowhere to preach, then disappears before the King's soldiers can close in."
