Lyssa's mouth twisted. Her head came up, and the noblewoman surfaced through the desperation like a blade through a coat.
"Yes, sir, mind your word. If there were a commoner in your place, I would have cut out her tongue for that."
"Oh, I am a commoner, by the way."
"...What?"
Lyssa stared. She searched the other woman's face for the joke, the tell, the punchline. Mira was gorgeous, impossibly so, dark-haired and elegant, her face and bearing superior to any noblewoman Lyssa had ever sat across a table from, the kind of beauty that got painted into palace ceilings. The claim was absurd. She did not believe it for a second. Nobody born in a gutter looked like that.
So she let it go, because it did not matter, and breathed out slowly, and looked down at the desk.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing in particular. Just sign the document."
"What? But doesn't it..." She looked down at the aid agreement. "The terms aren't..."
"Not those documents. Rather, this one."
