The words had left her mouth before she realised what she had spoken, and now they sat between them, impossible to take back. She knew about the second terrace attack because she had been there. Hiding. Watching. Pressed against the wall in the dark while men tried to kill the man standing in front of her.
But she could not tell him that.
Her mind scrambled for an explanation, grasping at anything that could fill the silence before he filled it with a conclusion she could not afford him to reach.
"I..." She swallowed hard. "I looked for you. Officer Bill helped me. And that is how I..." She trailed off. She could hear how thin it sounded.
"You are getting better at lying, Cixi." Cassian's voice came out strong and stern. The warmth that had carried it for the last hour was gone.
