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Azriel could recognize a pattern in his sleep. That’s what intelligence gathering was, anyway - watchful eyes and careful ears taking in every morsel of information, his knife’s edge intellect connecting each dot. Centuries of practice made a natural talent into an uncanny skill, and though he didn’t try to, it was always at work.
So when Nesta tucked an invisible hair behind her ear as she refused the food Cassian offered at breakfast, murmuring that she wasn’t hungry, Azriel latched on to the movement. He saw it again when Emerie asked about her nightmares, and a third time when she told Gwyn she was too sore to spar.
Nesta Archeron was lying to the people that loved her. Azriel considered that knowledge as he ate his dinner. It wasn’t surprising - Nesta was easily the most private of the three Archerons, and her childhood left her with no choice but to present an unyielding, flawless front.
It wasn’t a habit easily divested, he knew, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t allowed to lie. Azriel preferred omission to outright falsification, but to each their own, he supposed.
He was shaken from his thoughts when the female herself strode into the dining room. She offered him a murmured hello and a direct nod before falling into a seat at the other end of the table. Azriel kept a steady hand as he speared another piece of roast. Nesta was an interesting partner to observe, and he was in the mood for a puzzle.
Like a spider, he began to weave his web. He cracked his neck one way, then the other, exhaling with a small huff as he rotated his shoulders. He felt Nesta’s eyes on him, and inwardly smiled, satisfied. He asked mildly, “What’s bothering you, Nesta?”
She stared at him, unblinking, for a moment more. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, cold as stone. This was his favorite version of her to dance with - unforgiving, smooth as marble, and as sharp as the blades she Made.
“Gwyn was worried about you,” he half-explained, cocking an eyebrow, as if she should know what he meant. Azriel could almost feel the whip of thoughts through her mind, sorting out what she had and hadn’t told her friend, what Gwyn’s thoughtful eyes may have picked up without her notice.
And he wasn’t lying, he reasoned with himself. Gwyn was worried about Nesta - she just hadn’t said as much to him. But it was obvious from the way the priestess chewed on her thumbnail as she tracked Nesta’s precise movements through the training pit.
“Well, she needn’t be,” Nesta clipped, tucking that tell-tale invisible hair behind her pointed ear again.
She returned to taking small, precise bites of her dinner. He noted with amusement that the House had provided her with a different meal than it had offered to him. Nesta’s plate was half sweets, and she seemed determined to finish that portion first.
If he was being honest, Azriel wasn’t particularly concerned with what was actually bothering Nesta. He cared for her a great deal, but Azriel was not who Nesta turned to to cry, find comfort, or rage - her Valkyries and her mate filled those needs perfectly well. And he had no real reason to dig into her privacy. But things had been quiet, and boring, and he was itching for a victory, so he crept onwards.
Azriel hummed in response to her clear dismissal, his tone warm and gentle against Nesta’s ice. He needed to offer her another glimmer of information, to keep her invested in the conversation. Smart female, he praised her internally, to so thoroughly shut him out.
He sighed, “It’s just unlike you to back down from sparring. Gwyn’s gotten so fast with that dagger, she needs a partner who can keep up, and the other priestesses...” he trailed off, scratching the plate with his knife.
Nesta did not even flinch at the sound. So controlled, he admired.
“I wasn’t feeling well this morning,” she offered. No hair-tucking, so perhaps that was the truth after all.
“Did you sleep poorly? Madja could find you something to help,” he murmured, eyes cataloging her response. Nesta’s face scrunched, ever so slightly, like something was pulling at her brow. “Or perhaps the Mind-Healers in the Library here?” he asked, tone casual despite the insinuation. The nightmares, he remembered - Emerie had asked about nightmares.
“When did you become my caretaker, Mother?” Nesta drawled, setting down her fork. She observed him carefully, placing one bony elbow on the table to lean her head against her upright hand. It was an elegant deflection of his question. The competitive fire in Azriel flared a little brighter - was she catching on to his game?
“Chaperone duties,” he teased, as he moved to mirror her position. He offered her an amused smile, willing crinkling crows feet to appear beside his eyes. Nesta was a master strategist - but he was better. Lure her back in, he instructed himself, then snare. “So you’re sleeping okay?”
“I sleep fine, chaperone,” she clucked, rolling her eyes. And there - the traitorous brush of hair behind her ear.
So she wasn’t sleeping well - to be expected, he admitted. With Briallyn still at large and the fading signs of the kelpie’s assault still lingering on her face, he’d think it odd if she had no trouble resting.
But, she denied it - so he’d poke a bit more. “Are you feeling well, now?”
Her hand was just drifting down from her face, finishing the full sweep behind her ear. Just below her chin, it froze. She froze.
And narrowed her eyes.
And set both hands flat on the table in front of her.
Azriel had to stop himself from sighing. Her cleverness was one of his favorite things about her - except when it ruined his games.
“I feel fine, Spymaster,” she murmured, voice low and playful. "Any other questions?”
“Do you know what I was looking for?”
“No.”
“Would you like to?”
Nesta tilted her head in thought. “Will anyone else pick up on it?”
Azriel hummed appreciatively at the question, and the one she didn’t have to say out loud: do I need to get rid of it?
It was a good question - he had once lost a remarkable spy because she had removed every tell. It made her an obvious suspect: a blank slate, unknowable, and thus untrustworthy.
He considered those she was closest to. Perhaps Gwyn, whose brilliant eyes missed no detail, or Cassian, who watched her like he was always looking for her. But no one else of consequence, he decided.
All he said was, “Maybe.”
Nesta frowned thoughtfully, like she read the reasoning in his expression.
“Okay,” she nodded to herself. Without another word, she went back to her dinner, content to share the silence with Azriel.
He didn’t hold back the small smile that emerged on his lips. Nesta was fun - clever and bright and observant with no interest in gathering power beyond her means, no interest in using him or his skills.
With a start, Azriel realized that Nesta looked at him like someone looks at a friend. Chagrined, he ignored the thought that she might have known that before he did.
And it wasn’t anyone’s business if he pilfered an earthy, sweet-smelling herbal concoction from the House’s storerooms, meant to lull someone to a dreamless sleep, and left it on Nesta’s desk the next afternoon.