Regina Vance asked for a meeting at the eighth hour of the following morning, in a room at the governor's arena rather than a restaurant. She named the room, the hour, plus a condition that the conversation be private, which is the only part of her request Vell declined.
He accepted everything else and answered the last item in one line. Blackforge would attend, at that hour, in that room, with a relay open and the whole conversation published live to four houses.
She came to the room anyway, at the hour, with the relay board already lit.
That is the part everybody has argued about since, and it is the part Vell has never found difficult to explain. A woman who declines a recorded meeting has something to conceal, and a woman who attends one has decided that the concealed thing is worth less than the room.
