Dea clenched and unclenched her hands as this news sank in the room. It felt like the temperature had dipped again and a new chill settled on her skin. She tore her eyes away and swallowed. This was not how she imagined this conversation would play out. She thought their prisoners would be held behind bars to serve their time in Valencia for their committed crimes. But now she learned they were interrogated and tortured for information.

..Why did that make her feel sick?

She attempted to call his bluff. "You're lying."

He wouldn't dispute it because there was nothing to disprove. Still. She hoped he would appease her regardless. But she was not that lucky.

"It's a part of my job that I don't talk about."

"...But that can't be." She tried to keep her voice steady. The pain in her head was coming back at a cruel time. "I know the Armada do unsavory things, but I didn't picture you doing them..."

He tilted his head curiously. "Do you think I'm not capable?"

"Anyone is capable. It depends if they're willing to do it."

She crossed her arms and fixed him with a challenging stare. He was not intimidated in the slightest.

"I do everything I can to obtain the information we need. I don't do it because I like it. I do it because that is what is expected of me."

Her eyes searched his mask. To hear that the man she worked with was the same one physically inflicting this pain on others…She'd heard the Armada was involved in dirty business, but she thought such things were carried out by people… less than the Elite. She hadn't viewed Deacon as a threat - she learned he was a mildly-tempered man. But knowing that he tortured people…

…

…That was what was expected of him? What did his job entail, exactly?

Dea suddenly felt defenseless. If he was capable of this, then he was damn-well able to do things to her, too. Queen assured her he was a good man, but she neglected to mention he was capable of mindless violence.

Her mind began to spiral. She thought of all the nights they had slept together in the same room. At any point, he could've easily restrained her and questioned who she was. She would've had no other choice but to cave in. He could've gotten all the answers he wanted through physical means.

…Her subconscious dutifully reminded her that he didn't.

A painful ache formed in Dea's head from all this mental fretting. She wished she could have learned this without a concussion. She covered her mask with her hands and groaned. Deacon grew concerned.

"Are you alright?"

She held up a hand to reassure him. He didn't push it. She moved her arms to hug herself in a sudden need of comfort. Her voice was quiet.

"...What is it like?"

It took him a few seconds to realize what she was asking. His voice gave nothing away. "I won't talk about it."

"I don't want to know anything confidential. I just…" She looked to the floor. "..Want to know if it's hard for you."

She wished to know how he felt doing these things. Did he enjoy their pain? Or was it something he despised? He said it was part of his job that he was expected - and possibly forced - to do. If the process was difficult for him, he shouldn't bear that burden alone. Something tapped the tiles and caught her attention. Deacon had rearranged his cane into his other hand.

"This is nothing you need to worry about."

"Why not? Do I not have the right to know what happens to those we are capturing?"

"Your involvement is limited. The moment we're done arresting them, you are dismissed from this mission. Anything that happens afterwards is my obligation, not yours."

She fell silent. He continued, "-These are *my* prisoners. And I will see to it that my duties are fulfilled once and for all."

"So you'll question and beat them until they tell you what you want?" It was a rhetorical question and she knew it. She chewed the inside of her cheek. "...But what if they are innocent? If they know nothing about this 'pirate haven'?"

"They have been rightfully convicted with full evidence against them. These are not 'random scum' I have chosen willy-nilly."

"..."

Dea didn't know what to say. It was so much to take in. And really - she had no place to argue, what with this being * his * situation that she merely stepped into. She wondered if she would've agreed to this operation if she knew everything that was happening.

…Torture was wrong. But she personally knew a few men who deserved that pain. Who she would love to see suffer. She pictured Deacon bringing justice this way in her mind. *Someone* had to teach these degenerates a lesson, after all. Now she didn't feel so bothered by the prospect anymore.

But she was still conflicted.

The door opened and her nurse peeked in to announce that visiting hours were closing. The spymaster stood to his feet once they were alone. He faced Dea and tapped his fingers on his cane thoughtfully.

"What are your favorite flowers?" He prompted.

Despite the earlier tension, his co-captain let out an airly chuckle. She rested her head in her hand. "Why? Were you thinking of getting me some?"

"Yes. But…you've never mentioned your favorite."

She smiled under her mask. "Lobelias."

He tilted his mask ever so slightly. "Interesting," He remarked.

"I don't know if they're that popular here in Valencia, but we used to have them in our garden at home." Her heart ached as a feeling of reminiscence washed over her. She sighed. "But…tulips are also lovely."

"Noted. Buona notte."

He wasn't sure what else to do but take his leave. As he departed, he took one last glance at the trench coat hidden behind Dea and exhaled sadly.

That night, Deacon was where most Armada soldiers shouldn't be. But he was one of the few who had full clearance here, and he was going to use that to his advantage.

He'd been here months ago when he was first assigned a partner. He spent hours scouring through classified documents and checking the Armada's files for any information about her. He made little progress that day; it infuriated him to waste so much time. But now he had a lead and he wasn't going to waste this opportunity.

Reyna.

It wasn't hard to find his way past redacted Armada memorandums. The difficult part was * knowing * what material was obscured - and if he had that information, he could easily locate the original document. His search tonight went much easier than his last. Before the Emissary knew it, he was holding a confidential stack of papers containing everything that he wanted to know.

As he went to open the folder, he paused. Was he doing the right thing?

He'd held back long enough. If he had been really dedicated to finding Dea's identity, he would've returned here the second he learned she was from Monquista. He could've cashed in on a few favors owed to him there, taken a look at their army's records. But he'd been focused on his mission; too preoccupied with staying on Kane's good side to do any more personal digging. But with her admittance, he could search to his heart's delight.

He had waited, which proved fortunate. He held back long enough to learn Dea's true name directly from her lips - albeit accidentally. Which made what he was doing all the more contentious. But she didn't have to know . No one did. He had practice hiding things and acting on the down-low. It helped that he was an Elite and had authorization to do most of these things. If what he was doing was ever discovered, most Armada officers were more than willing to look away.

He opened the folder.

Obtaining the lobelias was a little time-consuming, but it didn't matter. He had time to waste, so what was a day hunting down a vendor in possession of them? It turns out they were beloved in Valencia, since the rich regularly decorated the outside of their mansions with hanging baskets of the flowers. But that meant most were out of stock, and that's where Deacon's little hunt began. He still managed to procure a bouquet with little problem, and wrote Dea's name on a small tag in neat handwriting.

He was stopped when Queen heard of what he was doing and she insisted he'd take her own arrangement with him. It mainly consisted of zinnias, to lament her temporary absence in the Armada, with chrysanthemums and crocuses. When he dropped them off at the hospital, he felt he had been overshadowed by Queen's bountiful assortment.

. . .

When that was done, he was faced with the same dilemma as before. Even though he visited Dea and made sure she was well, he still had to captain his ship alone and strategize by himself. It didn't make a difference, really - he'd done this for years and managed well on his own. But he was missing her input, her small comments on how repetitive his schemes were and how he needlessly wrote every tiny detail down.

He felt...incomplete. This was not a feeling he experienced before, which meant he had to accept the difficult fact that—

He missed Dea.

To cope with this realization, he sought out his journal every time he thought about her. Her mattress in the cabin was vacant, but all of her belongings were still there. The room even lingered of her perfume. Soon his back pages were full of Dea's habits that he knew, what foods she liked, and the lyrics to the songs she sang around him.

On his less favorable nights, much like this one where he was deep in thought, he scribbled down the name 'Reyna' , followed by what he found in those documents. He learned a few interesting things about her past, but it all felt like an incomplete puzzle.

It turns out she wasn't a transfer at all. She'd been discharged from the Monquistan army for 'insubordination' , and had a list of misdemeanors on her record. But he couldn't find what she had been accused of, and all of her superiors used codenames to hide their identities. Deacon recognized the work of someone intentionally covering their tracks, and had the strongest feeling that was going on here. He just wasn't sure if it was Dea herself, or someone else outside of this equation.

It just…didn't make sense.

Yes, Dea was a little difficult. She talked back and asserted herself when she could. But she followed orders and expressed nothing but loyalty to the Armada. She never worked against their mission and had no issue when it came to capturing prisoners from her homeland. It was hard to picture his co-captain as a troublemaker.

Not to mention, the Armada's standards were strict, and would not willingly recruit anyone with a bad history. There was no statement of her request ever being denied, but surely her records had to have been accessed? Knowing Queen was behind Dea's promotion, he wondered if she had a helping hand in her enlistment as well.

And if she did… why? Queen was the second-in-command of the Armada. She had the authority to do as she pleased, but she was also stern. She had high expectations like any other upper-hand did. She would not let a disobedient soldier work alongside an Elite like him.

Deacon dropped his pen and sighed, sitting back in his chair. His thoughts returned to the day he was called into his father's office and presented with a proposition. Kane himself said Dea had no "records of negligence " - had he lied? Or was that a true statement, and Dea's misconduct was elsewhere? The Supreme Commander had the final say in all decisions regardless of Queen's input. Which meant he must have personally approved of Dea himself.

He could not ask Queen about it because then that would reveal he was snooping around Armada records again, and she might not appreciate this with Dea, knowing how she felt about the girl. And Kane would be upset to learn he was avoiding his mission and fretting over such trifles. The spymaster regretted looking at those papers, because now he had more questions than answers.

Why couldn't this be easy, and he could simply ask Dea about it? She was secretive of her past, and now Deacon had a clue as to why. But what could she be hiding? How much was there that he didn't know? And why did that bother him so much?

He leaned forward and grabbed his pen again, letting out an exhausted breath. In a fit of frustration, he wrote down the words:

I miss her.