Chandra and Gideon walked into the dining room just as Liliana was leaving.
Comfortable laughter. A playful punch on the arm. The look on the Beefslab's face that hinted at what he couldn't or wouldn't say. The childlike smile on Chandra's that said he was going to have to if he ever wanted her to find out.
Liliana rolled her eyes.
"Liliana!" Gideon boomed, as he noticed her.
"Oh, hey Lili" Chandra smiled.
"Beefslab. Chandra." Liliana nodded with an indolent smile as she walked toward the door.
"Late night?" Gideon asked cheerily as Liliana passed him.
"Excuse me?" she turned.
"You're holding two cups. That's a lot of coffee."
Liliana paused and a smile spread across Chandra's face. "Gids, I don't think the other one's for her."
The big man looked pleasantly surprised. He picked an apple out of a bowl and pulled out a chair beside Chandra, who had taken a seat on the far end of the table in front of a plate piled high with pastries.
And now both of them were smiling at her like idiots.
"Is there something you wanted to say?" Liliana asked calmly.
"No," Chandra replied, still grinning. "It's just cute how much nicer you are now that you and Jace are in looove."
"And whatever possessed you to think we might be in love?" Liliana intended for it to sound dismissive but an annoyed thinness seeped into her voice.
"C'mon, Lili." Chandra laughed. "You guys already fight like a married couple. And have you seen his face when you walk by? And I know you think about him a lot too because you're always wearing your I-thought-of-a-way-to-annoy-Jace face."
Gideon snorted a laugh as he tore his apple into perfect halves with his bare hands. He offered one to Chandra, who shook her head.
"And, you know," Chandra grinned. "You actually, like, care—enough to bring him coffee when you know he's had a long night."
She turned to Gideon. "Gids, has Lili ever brought you coffee?"
Gideon laughed. "I don't think I've ever seen Liliana bring anyone anything. Ever."
"Me neither," Chandra agreed with a grin.
They were enjoying this.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Liliana replied, in a tone she hoped would sound bored but was instead coming across as painfully defensive. "I believe I brought you soup the one time you were sick."
"You only did that because you wanted my help burning the rats out of that place you bought!" Chandra said, laughing. "You know, the place you never use because you're always here in Jace's house?"
Gideon laughed again and Liliana willed her fists not to clench through the cups she was holding. She forced herself to smile at them.
"Instead of speculating about the nature of my relationship with Jace, perhaps the two of you might do better figuring out your own…situation."
The smiles faded a little. Gideon looked taken aback and Chandra looked confused.
Open books, the both of them, Liliana thought.
"Huh?" Chandra said.
"Oh, don't give me that," Liliana said sardonically. "You quite literally have your hands on him every chance you get. And while there are over a dozen rooms in this building, I always seem to find you—" she looked to Gideon, "—in whichever one Chandra happens to be in."
"I mean, look at yourselves. This table can seat a banquet's worth of people but you've not only chosen to sit beside each other, you've also chosen to sit at the furthest corner from the door, away from where I or anyone else might conveniently pull up a chair."
"That's a bit of a stretch, Lili." Chandra said good-naturedly. But she shifted in her chair, slightly away from Gideon as she did.
"Of course, it is," Liliana said patronizingly. "and I'm sure you and your beefcake are blushing for an entirely unrelated reason."
"We are not blushing!" Chandra protested, her face reddening as she did. "We just happened to sit here! There's no situation. Gideon and I are just friends, right Gids?"
Chandra looked up at Gideon, who looked exceedingly uncomfortable and was trying very hard not to show it.
"Yes, of course," he said, after a short pause that was noticeably longer than it could have been.
"Very well, then," Liliana said, relishing her re-asserted control over the situation, "explain to me why Gideon is here with you while the Legion is in the middle of trying to quell a Gruul uprising?"
"Gruul uprising?" Chandra asked.
"Fifth district," Liliana said casually. "Sunhome has been redeploying soldiers from other districts since early this morning. I hear it's quite the event. Apparently, some of the clans have decided that smashing things is a lot easier if they work together."
Gideon's face flushed an even deeper shade of red. "I wasn't aware there was trouble in the Fifth."
Liliana laughed. "How could you have known," she smiled sweetly. "You've been here with Chandra."
That should teach those children, Liliana thought as she walked down the corridor.
Of course, Gideon had looked confused; she knew he'd spent much of the morning in one of the Guildpact's private offices discussing the same dull zoning dispute that had kept Jace up the entire night. He wouldn't have heard of a Gruul uprising in the Fifth District.
Mostly because there wasn't one.
Wherever you found the Gruul—the Fifth District, the Ninth District, or anywhere else on Ravnica, really—you found unrest. The clans were always stirring up trouble of some sort. That was just their way. It was a convenient fact that led credence to her lie.
So, Captain Beefslab would run off to either Sunhome or the Boros garrison in the Fifth district like the predictable white knight he was, duty before resolving the uncomfortable personal issue. It would eat at both of them, at least for a while because, as far as Liliana could tell, Gideon was too big of a coward to admit anything to Chandra while Chandra, poor silly child, could be so laughably naïve, sometimes.
Liliana smiled. She refused to feel bad. Truthfully, she'd only meant to extricate herself because the coffee would get cold. It wasn't her fault the children chose to play Who's Better at Pushing Buttons. Besides, Sir Side-of-Beef would certainly find a way to be helpful wherever he went; that's just how he was.
So, really, she'd actually done someone, somewhere, a service.
These do-gooders really are rubbing off on me, she thought, unironically, and not for the first time since joining the Gatewatch.
She tapped her foot four times on a brick in front of a seemingly random corner and the wall opened to reveal a hidden stairway—one that twisted and turned and ended in a private office she knew Jace used when he didn't want to be disturbed, where she knew she'd find him falling asleep on his endless backlog of forms and papers.
Jace had taken several structural and magical precautions to hide the inner parts of his sanctum and Liliana was sure he felt that no one else knew about his hidden passages and secret hallways. She smiled, imagining the look on his face when she showed up at the door.
She stepped into the landing as the wall closed behind her, taking care not to spill the coffee she was carrying—cream and hard liquor in hers, lots of sugar in his. Six lumps, to be exact, because that was always how Jace made his coffee. She had no idea how he could drink it.
Jace used coffee as a substitute for sleep so often that she half expected that one day he'd simply fall asleep in the middle of his day. The thought amused her, petitioners standing in the Hall of the Guildpact, passionately airing some tedious grievance or the other, only to be interrupted by the sound of snoring. They'd look up and see him asleep on his chair with the ridiculous little frown on his face that his eyebrows sometimes made while he slept.
As Liliana ascended the stairs, her thoughts wandered back to the red confusion on Chandra's face. Even after two hundred years, it still surprised her how self-unaware and blind people could be when it came to their affections.
She can't even see what's in front of her but she thinks me in love? Liliana scoffed. Then she smiled and shook her head.
Where did that silly girl even get such a ridiculous notion?