Dinner was at a tavern two streets from the guild hall. Gareth picked the place because Gareth picked everything that involved food, and nobody argued because he was always right about it.
The place was called the Broken Drum, which Mordain thought was a terrible name for a tavern but apparently it had been around for decades and the food was worth the walk.
He let Noel sit where Gareth told him to sit, which was between Gareth and Rose because of course it was.
The table was round, which meant Mordain could see everyone without turning his head. Gareth to his left, Rose to his right, Lucian directly across, Daven next to Lucian, Mira next to Daven, and Nyx at the far end where she could watch the door and the kitchen entrance at the same time.
That seating arrangement told him everything he needed to know about this group.
Gareth ran the conversation. Not because anyone asked him to, but because that was just what Gareth did. He talked loud and fast and pulled everyone into whatever he was saying whether they wanted to be there or not.
He was currently telling a story about a mission where Daven had accidentally set fire to a bridge they needed to cross.
"And then he just stands there, right, looking at the fire like it personally betrayed him, and goes 'well that wasn't supposed to happen' while the entire bridge is just gone, completely gone, and we've got a river full of Scalebacks between us and the objective—"
"That fire was tactically justified," Daven said without looking up from his plate.
"You set fire to our only exit!"
"I set fire to the enemy's only entrance. Perspective, Gareth."
Mordain watched the table while Noel laughed at the right moments.
Daven performed, and that was the best word for it. Everything he said was delivered to an audience, even when the audience was just five people at a dinner table.
He leaned back in his chair at angles that had to be practiced, gestured with his fork for emphasis, and timed his punchlines like he'd rehearsed them.
The man was insecure. Mordain had clocked that in the first ten minutes and nothing since had changed his assessment.
Daven needed to be the impressive one, the clever one, the one people noticed. The Noel persona — meek, clumsy, unthreatening — was the perfect mirror for that insecurity.
Daven would never see Noel as a threat because Noel was everything Daven was afraid of being.
Nyx ate in silence and watched. She hadn't initiated a single conversation since they sat down, but she'd responded when spoken to — short, clipped answers that gave nothing away.
What interested Mordain was what she watched. Not the door, not the other patrons. She watched the party. Her eyes moved between them in a pattern that wasn't random — she was reading the group the way a scout reads terrain.
She'd looked at him four times in the last twenty minutes. Each time for roughly two seconds, and each time when he was doing something that should have been unremarkable. Laughing at a joke, reaching for bread, responding to a question from Rose.
She wasn't suspicious, not yet. But she was paying attention in a way that the others weren't, and that made her the person he needed to be most careful around.
Mira was easier to track because her method was more direct. She listened to everything and said very little, but when she did talk it was to ask a question that seemed casual and wasn't.
"So Noel, where did you train before the guild assigned you here?"
"Oh, uh, mostly on my own? I had a few teachers growing up but nobody stuck around for very long. I think I was a frustrating student, honestly. One of them told me I had a lot of potential and absolutely no discipline, which I thought was pretty accurate."
Mordain delivered the line with a self-deprecating grin and watched Mira's eyes. She processed the answer, cross-referenced it with whatever her Mind concept was picking up from his surface emotions, and moved on.
She didn't follow up, which meant the answer had passed.
Rose was the most interesting to watch because she didn't watch at all. She just existed in the group the way sunlight exists in a room — warming everything without trying.
She made sure Gareth had water because he'd been talking nonstop and hadn't taken a drink in fifteen minutes. She nudged Lucian's plate toward him when she noticed he'd stopped eating.
She asked Daven about a spell he'd been working on and listened to the answer like it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever heard.
And she kept glancing at Noel.
They were quick looks, nothing obvious. A smile when he said something funny, a slight lean in his direction when he spoke. She probably didn't even realize she was doing it, which was exactly how Mordain had designed the dynamic to unfold.
The attraction response was building faster than his models had predicted.
Rose was drawn to vulnerability because her entire identity was built around protecting people. Noel was vulnerability made flesh — nervous, self-deprecating, clearly out of his depth among fighters who were objectively better than him.
Every instinct Rose had was telling her to take care of this person.
And she would. She'd take care of him and grow attached to him and eventually fall in love with him, because that was what Rose did and Mordain had counted on it from the start.
Then there was Lucian.
He sat across the table and held the centre of the group without saying much. That was the most impressive thing about him, actually. Gareth was louder, Daven was flashier, Rose was warmer — but everyone at this table oriented themselves around Lucian without thinking about it.
When Lucian spoke, people stopped. When Lucian looked at someone, they straightened up. When Lucian relaxed, the whole table relaxed with him.
He wasn't doing it on purpose. That was the thing. It was just what happened when you put an S rank in a room full of A ranks. Power had gravity, and Lucian's gravity was the strongest thing in this tavern by a very wide margin.
Right now, Lucian was watching Noel the way he'd been watching Noel all evening — with the careful, measured attention of someone who hadn't made up his mind yet.
Not suspicious, just careful. Lucian Vael didn't trust easily, which was smart. It was also something Mordain could work with because the longer trust took to build, the harder it would be to break once it was in place.
"Noel," Lucian said, and the table got a little quieter. "Your concept — Force and Momentum. How long have you been working with it?"
"Uh, about six years? I manifested it pretty late compared to most people. My instructor said I was a slow bloomer, which was his nice way of saying I was bad at it for a really long time."
"And now?"
Mordain let Noel pause, just for a beat. Made his eyes go a little more serious, a little less nervous. Just a sliver of the competence underneath.
"Now I'm pretty good, actually. I mean, I know I don't look it, and I know my file probably reads like the guild's least exciting candidate, but my concept is strong. I just need a chance to show it."
It was the most confident thing Noel had said all evening, and Mordain delivered it with exactly the right amount of quiet sincerity to make it land.
Lucian looked at him for a long moment and then nodded once.
"Tomorrow morning. Training grounds. We'll see what you've got."
Gareth grinned and lifted his mug. "To the new guy!"
"To the new guy," the table echoed, and Mordain raised his mug with them and let Noel's face break into the kind of surprised, grateful smile that made people want to root for him.
Under the table, Rose's foot brushed against his. She pulled it back immediately, her ears turning pink, and mumbled something about the chairs being too close together.
Mordain made Noel's ears turn pink too, because that was the correct response.
Tomorrow he'd show them just enough to justify his place on the team and not a fraction more.
Tonight, he'd eat dinner and laugh at Gareth's stories and pretend to be embarrassed when Rose looked at him, and the six best fighters in Valdris would have no idea that the most dangerous man alive was sitting right next to them asking if anyone wanted the last piece of bread.