Silas found her in the library afterward.
He looked at her face.
"You did something," he said.
"I wrote him a letter," she said.
"What kind of letter," he said.
"A direct one," she said.
He sat down across from her.
"Tell me," he said.
She told him and he listened without interrupting. When she finished he was quiet for a moment.
"You called him tired," he said.
"He is tired," she said. "Eight years of watching your work get buried. Anyone would be."
"He might find that presumptuous," Silas said.
"He might," she said. "Or he might find it the first honest thing anyone from outside his faction has said to him in years." She held Silas's gaze. "I'm betting on the second one."
Silas looked at her.
"Your father did things like this," he said. "Direct contact. Bypassing the formal diplomatic channels when he thought they were getting in the way."
"I know," she said. "I read about it."
"It worked for him about sixty percent of the time," Silas said.
