A/N: This update includes chapter 20. Thank you for reading!

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"No."

The word was hard and final.

Kaitrith narrowed her eyes, a few of the thorns on her Elgan'an vallaslin elongating from the tug of her skin. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table. "Come again?"

The pompous noble prat crossed his legs as he sat back in his chair, shoulders relaxed, fingers laced in his lap. While his lips remained a simply line, she could barely make out a gleeful gleam in his eyes. "I said no."

Josephine sat beside Kaitrith, a measured frown in place as she carefully shifted just so in her seat. Not a fidget, but some human maneuver to show adjusted attention. "My dear marquis, we had an agreement. The inquisition has supported your endeavors. In return, we expect—"

"You expect too much, lady ambassador."

"We expect—"

"The bare fucking minimum," Kaitrith finished, standing up and slamming her palms down on the table. At first the marquis seemed bemused by the action.

"Ah, this must be the inquisitor's fabled temper. You can't have what you want, so you throw a tantrum."

On most days, such a statement would have had her struggling not to get into a fistfight. However, today…

Today Bull had given her an update that Solas had nothing to tell.

Literally.

It was as though he didn't exist until a few years before the Breach, and that was impossible. He had to have had a clan or come from a city or…

Grown men didn't just pop up.

That in itself had Bull uncomfortable, and Kaitrith too. She'd expected some sort of twist, but for him to just not have existed?

That was impossible.

And she didn't like the impossible.

And more than that, something her keeper had told her time and time again had finally begun to sink in.

Brute force alone could not solve all problems.

She'd known this, on some level, but now, dealing with Solas, it was abundantly clear just how much she lacked as far as abilities to figure him out went. He wasn't a problem she could just run headlong at, and she couldn't outsource it to one of her few friends, either.

Now, as she looked at the marquis, it occurred to her that a lot of her problems were the same. They required a tact that she didn't have.

It was beyond frustrating.

She was already in a cat and mouse game, and she was the mouse.

She was the one without any damned power, even with the ability to close the rifts.

This wasn't how she was going to let things go…

Just as she was about to defer to Josephine, she remembered one of the few times she'd interacted with other clans during the Arlathvhen, how one clan had felt slighted by another and had moved to disgrace them.

She'd thought it honor-less, and yet…

Letting out a disgusted noise, Kaitrith straightened up and glared down her nose at the man. Somehow the brambles on her face seemed all the sharper. "Josephine, what are the repercussions of falsifying inquisition support?"

Josephine's brow pinched together. "Inquisitor?"

"This man says we support his endeavors, but I never met him before today, nor was I briefed on whatever he's on about."

For a split instant, Josephine looked confused, no doubt wondering just how Kaitrith had come up with this approach. Before the marquis could turn his attention to her, however, she'd caught on. "My assistant says he's here about a bill that would support his claim to part of the Emerald Graves."

"You already said you'd—"

Kaitrith crossed her arms, doing her best to channel that prat keeper she'd hated for the last few years. "You really think anyone would believe a Dalish elf would recognize human claims to our forest?"

The forest in question wasn't actually part of the Emerald Graves, at least not according to any clan she'd ever met. However, it was in close proximity, and humans seemed incapable of understanding where the Emerald Graves actually ended. She'd been to the area in question, and at a glance she could see the difference in ages and types of trees. It was part of the Wilds, not the Graves.

She'd told Josephine this, quietly, and her lover had simply shrugged and suggested they take advantage of the misunderstanding, as the marquis was one of the more problematic Orlesian nobles they'd had to deal with.

The twinkle in his eyes was gone. "This will not stand!"

"What will not stand is your claim, marquis," Josephine replied, measured smile in place, a predatory glint in her eyes. "The inquisition has no need of self-serving, manipulative games. That you could use our name to serve your own means—"

"You can have the weapons I promised."

"The what?" Kaitrith asked, cocking her head.

"The weapons!" He sat forward in his seat, his earlier composure slowly unraveling.

"You think our honor can be bought with a bit of steel?" Kaitrith growled, brow dropping. "My people had had a long and hard past of being tricked and fooled, and that you would be so horrible as to—"

"I'll double it."

"The blood of my people—"

"Triple it!"

"Can we get that in writing?" Kaitrith asked, glancing over at Josephine, who was already drawing up the new contract.

When the meeting finally ended and the flustered marquis departed, Josephine hesitated. "You said that land wasn't—"

"It's not," Kaitrith dismissed, finally slumping back down into her chair and glaring at the door.

"This could come back to hurt us," Josephine murmured softly. "Especially with the Dalish. If they think you're actually giving elven lands to humans, there could be bad blood."

"I'll write a letter to my keeper," Kaitrith murmured.

"There are other clans."

"I'm well aware," Kaitrith muttered, though she stopped herself when she realized she wasn't mad at Josephine. Shoulders slumping, she ran a hand through her hair. "I need to be able to fight the way you do." Even as Josephine readied a protest, Kaitrith closed her eyes. "With words." Her mind went back to Solas and the way he spoke, the way she knew he didn't mean what he said, but could never figure out what it was that he was hiding. "I need to be able to read people, to be able to outsmart them."

"Well, today was a good start," Josephine offered, reaching out and lightly clasping Kaitrith's hand.

"I've met toads smarter than that idiot," Kaitrith muttered.

With a gentle laugh, Josephine leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss against Kaitrith's cheek. "You give yourself too little credit. That was quite brilliantly done."

"Hardly," Kaitrith muttered, considering how such cheap tactics wouldn't work on Solas. Creators, the only reason it had worked on the marquis was probably because he'd been prepared for brute force rather than mind games. Pulling Josephine's hand to her lips, she held her there a moment before finally giving her a faint, half-hearted smile. "Thank you for the kind words, though."

"I mean it," Josephine smiled, turning her hand as Kaitrith let her go so that she could run her fingers down her cheek. "You handled that well, considering I've never seen you participate in politics like that before."

"If it didn't work, I was going to toss him out the window."

As Josephine laughed, Kaitrith chose not to point out how that had been less of a joke than she'd meant it to be.

If she was going to figure out what Solas was hiding, if she was going to get him to show his cards, she would need a lot more practice at this sort of fighting.

That, or she'd need a damned miracle.