If Bastien is aware of or particularly concerned by Derrica's new tension and Richard's brittle misery, in the way of a spy whose life and livelihood relied on noticing an involuntary glance or a breath held too long in his periphery, there's no sign of it. He looks at them, but he does it with the blunt appraisal of someone worried about someone's suffering, curious about another's magic.

To Marcus he says, "No one likes to be caught with their spy down an ally's trousers," thick Orlesian accent making the phrasing somehow both more refined and more obscene. "If they authorized what she did to you and l'enchanteur—of course they will say they did not, but they might give something up to prove it."

He holds out a hand for the journal Marcus is holding onto, with the question mark in his eyebrows. He does not especially expect it to be handed to him.