After making her rounds among the minor Theiri functionaries Juli returned to her seat, only to find herself once more conversing with LeChance. “‘Juliette,’” she corrected the assassin. The princess actually preferred ‘Juli,’ but being treated informally by a shady mercenary could only further undermine what little sway she had in the royal court. “And, not to be rude, but the day’s events haven’t left me in the mood for drinking or toasts.<br/><br/>“It seems you and that gypsy antagonized each other very effectively. To be blunt, that sort of incident is not helpful to us—especially since I’m sure you or he will turn up dead within the next couple days due to an unfortunate ‘accident.’ From what I’ve seen of your skills, probably him.” She sighed. “We’ve discussed previously how you have every financial incentive to destabilize these talks and play both sides against the middle. So I have a proposal: what if both my people and the Aserit were to come together to pay you to leave our lands for say, a year? I’m sure you could find lucrative work elsewhere, and you’d be getting paid for doing essentially nothing.” There was no way of knowing if the Aserit or even her own queen would come around to the idea, but there seemed to be little hope of peace so long as LeChance was free to kill.