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"How fares your goddess, mortal?"
Gale's eyebrows quirk, furrow, a litany of questions in the gesture. Raphael's question is falsely light and easy, searching fingers always looking for a cracks, for weakness.
That Gale has walked himself to Raphael's table to discuss the crown of Karsus does make him a closer target for such inspection. But it does not, in his mind, put him at a disadvantage.
A foolish confidence.
"What is a cambion, to a goddess?" Gale shoots back, keeping the line of his back relaxed as he fills his plate. "Or a god?"
There is such arrogance underpinning corners of the wizard's not-quite-smile, for all that his question appears to be posed in idly conjecture. Academic curiosity, as though he is not trying to shift his lanceboard pieces without Raphael noticing.
Raphael exhales slowly, vocalising a little 'ah' that shudders in the air between them, coiling, much too knowing. It seems to sink under Gale's skin and see all of him, his every faintest ambition, and knows them for the petty the little mewls of a child-mortal that they are. And one, burning too bright, impossible to mask.
So he seeks godhood, this mortal. Has tired of his goddess' games and lessons. Her dismissive disdain. Is too proud to seek another, be they divine or devil, and wants the crown all to himself.
Raphael has seen the ending of so many mortal stories with similar beginnings (and hasn't he penned so many of those endings?). He will see many more.
"Another Karsus," he says, lips quirking. "Curious about the crown are you? No doubt you wish to know how… more capable hands will make use of it in the hells."
There's nothing cold about Gale's arrogance, or the way his eyes harden at the comparison. It burns in his chest the way Mystra's little disciplining does, hot as the hellfire that cradles Raphael's home. It's amusing, even, to see him feign cool composure as he draws himself up to his full height, still playing the powerful arch-wizard that was taken from him. That she had always wanted him to be, feeding him her desires from her plate until he thought they were his.
But his mortal hunger has asserted itself. His very own, over-reaching, with nobody to tell him what to desire.
"Certainly not," Gale says, his voice so level and careful. "Karsus had… ambition, certainly. But I know better than to tempt the consequences of that ambition as he did."
Surely he does. That's why his eyes shine with such greedy light when he finds items of power, when he jokes about temptation as idly as one might take an indulgence from a laden table, though one's belly may be full. Masking that want with the humour of simply being curious. His lesson learned, contrite if not wholly humbled, surely he would never walk upon the edge of ruin again, when he is still living his prior consequence?
Oh his want is palpable. A hungry mouse tired of crumbs, needing something substantial for its ever-growing teeth, it's ever-calling belly.
"We learn from the mistakes of the past," the wizard goes on, and he seems like he even believes what he says. Has lied to himself so long that he can not see past his pretty little hypocrisies.
He has never been fully humbled, not even by his goddess. That hunger is too great, eating through the guilt, eating through the lesson, as he tells himself that he will surely know better next time. Such a smart man could only ever be a fool once.
What is a god, to an ambitious man?
What better temptation for a devil, than a man who knows better than to be tempted, and allows it all the same?
This hunger could devour itself, it always has. That strange and endless mortal hunger that is far out of proportion of their power, their lifespans, their understanding of the world. That sparks again and again in so many of their history, seeking to sate itself on chieftains and kings and emperors, on all the gods and devils above and below.
Raphael flicks a hand, condescension colouring ever flicker of finger.
"Arrogant little mortals are the constant footnotes of history," Raphael says coolly, inspecting his nails and pretending not to delight in the way that his dismissiveness tightens Gale's jaw and stiffens his spine. "You only serve as a warning. One to be ignored over and over again."
Know your place hangs unspoken in the air. But they both know, after all, that Gale still has the vital piece on the board. He and his merry band of fools have the means to seize the crown, to place it in Raphael's hands if, and only if, the cambion can turn the wizard's hunger.
Raphael is an excellent, excellent host. And he keeps a very full table.
He isn't sure, just yet, which way he wants the game to fall. Whether he wants to feed the man's folly, or if he hungers to humble him. Perhaps both. To raise him just high enough that it will be all the more satisfying to bring him to his knees.
"Of course, you aren't one of those."
He knows better, after all.
The Boudior did not draw him. But the Archive, of course, a perfect snare. He had nearly had to be dragged away for dinner and conversation, and only with the promise that he could return to it to satisfy his curiosities.
"I have no intention of making a deal. Or finding myself a permanent resident."
"But of course. You may leave whenever you wish. But do not think to return once you do." Raphael's eyes glitter with malice and firelight, and Gale's expressions are not at all as composed as he thinks, lifting a glass of wine to his lips.
There is still so much to see. So much power, so much knowledge. If he can only be here once… what's the hurry? Surely there's not much harm. He knows better.
"Perhaps… a little longer."
"Naturally." Raphael smiles, ever the perfect host. "Only once you have sated yourself."