[Closed Post: Be You and I Behind an Arras Then]

[timebethine]

The moment draws nigh. Laertes will soon speak to Aornis in the library. All is in readiness--Asmodean long since in place, invisibly veiled in saidin; SecUnit's drone watching from its customary vantage.

In the game room, SecUnit, Claudius, Sagramore, and Nightingale gather around the grainy CRT television, watching the drama unfold ...


[This post is for live reactions from the war room! Participation in this thread is totally optional.]

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[sagramore]

(Sagramore freezes when Nightingale grabs his wrist, and it means he misses exactly what happens between Aornis and Laertes in that moment, only catches Claudius' deliberate choice to say her name.)

[wickedwit]

Claudius releases a breath he didn't know he was holding, that frozen, fearful moment replaced by a feeling like pride. Laertes knows what he's doing, knows what he's done, from the moment he let that mask of careful, retreating deference slip for familiarity in grief. Later, he thinks, he'll kiss Laertes for his cleverness and his deftness, and -- apologize, all the same. This isn't a test he should have had to take.

"Take care with that name," Claudius says at last, to the others in the room. "She can sense it being said. I'm rather confident in it." Magnus's experience, Lan Wangji's words, and now the avouch of his own eyes.