Warren Frost did not immediately lower his arms.
His dark eyes remained fixed on Xander Gray, measuring the distance between them, the casual angle of Xander's shoulders, and the absence of any visible weapon.
"Well played, Xander...well played..." he thought.
"You expect us," Warren said, his voice level and devoid of warmth, "to take your word that a junior assassin on our own flank was bought off, march into a known bottleneck, and hand you the override control for the Citadel's front door simply because you offered a polite warning?"
Edmund stood a step behind Warren, his pale fingers twitching slightly as a film of frost formed and vanished across the knuckles of his right hand.
The humiliation of being hunted as the Phantom Target during Trial Three still lingered like a raw wound; every instinct he'd honed over the years screamed against trusting someone whose primary weapon was manipulation.
