There was a time when Magda might have moved to embrace Kennet. A time when her eyes would light with a knowing look and an amused smile. Magda managed a facsimile of the look now, but no doubt Kennet would see it for the reproduction that it was. She did, however, not push her luck by stepping forward to greet the King’s Hand. Instead, Magda curtsied, though not without a hint of irony.

“Oh fear not, I was making myself useful,” Magda teased, “Stroking egos, combing ruffled feathers, settling Lord Howell’s delicate temper.” She waved a hand as if brushing the matter from her desk as completed.

Magda was not yet ready to concede that they were strangers. She’d prod at the coals of their friendship to see if they would light again.

Oh, Lord Howell. Magda and Conall Morrigan had once stood in Lord Howell’s dining room and sword allegiance to the Ellis king. She knew about the hoards of gold he’d amassed for just that eventuality. Cassian knew too; Magda had gone running back to him with the ledger and letters that connected him to Lord Winters and her late stepfather. That seemed an eternity ago now. It might as well be.

She draped herself on the divan, turning one curl with her finger as she watched Kennet pour her drink. The strain in Kennet’s voice did not go unnoticed. Magda raised an eyebrow, smirking as her black eyes examined her with intense curiosity.

“Lord Howell’s ill temper notwithstanding,” Magda teased, “I would think things went rather well. Plenty of revelations with little dissent to follow. What more could one ask for?” There was a slight edge to Magda’s tease, one that would go unnoticed by the average ear. But Kennet was no average woman, and neither was Magda. She’d left the bitterness there for Kennet to find; a clue in one of their conversational scavenger hunts. That was what had made them friends in the first place, after all. The game they both played so well.

“That I did not.”

Magda too sipped from her glass, watching Kennet with the same playful scrutiny her once confidant had come to know well. Where Kennet’s bottle green eyes showed their sharpness, Magda’s were dark and glassy as if she were a doll made real. At Kennet’s dismissal, Magda took a sip of her wine before starting breezily:

“I came to talk about Othello Allemeade.” Magda watched Kennet over the rim of her glass, a smirk pulling at her lip, “The little witch certainly made a mess of things, didn’t she?”

Whatever mirth danced on Magda’s lips did not make it to her eyes. They were black, bleak with anger that simmered beneath the surface. She wouldn’t let it break forward—not yet. For now, she played along. She sipped her wine. She let Kennet tease, play the courtier in a way that Magda used to treat as an art form. Now, she only saw frivolity. A silly exertion of influence that withered in the shadow of the raw power she’d seen in the grasslands.

“You’ve seen the brute,” Magda said with an equally playful smirk, “I’m sure you can see how his absence would be notable. But I’m afraid it’s the fire that’s left an even greater impression.” She was impossibly still now, studying Kennet as if she could see straight through to the thoughts in her pretty little head. “Did you know they were sending the witch to take him?"

She wouldn't dignify the King's Huntsman by calling her by name. She'd proven she was not worthy of note.

Magda smirked before taking a sip of her wine glass. Both of them unawares, then. She didn’t know if that made her feel more or less frustrated with the whole affair.

“It would have been so easy…” Magda said, twirling a girl with her finger as her black eyes stared directly into Kennet’s, “I could have made him sing Nevermere’s praises, to go willingly, had I only been asked.” She watched Kennet for a moment more before shrugging and taking a sip of her wine, the matter forgotten. Then, she refocused on Kennet, the smirk hardened into a neutral line.

“The night before my wedding, the king told me I was a credit to my kingdom." Magda tilted her head the other way, eyes still fixed on Kennet, as a raptor might in investigation. "I wonder if you believe that to be true.”