Daryll looked at his notes as he thought this over. “On paper, that does sound like the perfect decoy. Should we proceed with it.”
Gavin nodded. “I’ll—I’ll think about it,” he said after a while, still tapping the mug in thought. “That would mean I need to be there too, right? To make sure the blood’s as fresh as possible?” He glanced at Ruli. “And we gotta figure out which one of you’ll be the decoy, too.” 
“Can we start preparations for that now, or is that something we need to do closer to the time of the siege?” Daryll asked, then wrinkled his nose. “Gods, that reminds me, I did volunteer to attend the war council. That’s going to be long and grueling.” He looked at the lad beside him. “I’m not sure if it would be wise for you to attend that, though.”
Gavin’s face fell. “I’m starting to see that. Not everyone’s gonna get up in my face simply to test me. They might actually mean it.” 
Daryll smirked at that. “We’ll see how Her Highness feels about it first. Along with the idea of a decoy. You two are lucky; she’s oddly mellowed out just a little bit.”
“Kire’s [i]mellowed out[/i]?” Gavin asked, brows raised. Daryll chuckled. 

--

Etta giggled. “Thank you,” she said back. “Are you gonna spar with her?” she asked Kire. 
“I haven’t had the pleasure yet, come to think of it,” Kire replied, smirking at Ysaryn 
“Yeah, we haven’t seen you spar in a long time, Kay,” Precy put in, turning to Ysaryn, “she’s the second best swordsman in our family.”
Kire gasped, mock indignant. “What do you mean [i]second[/i]?” The girls giggled.
“Ed’s the best one,” Etta said, grinning cheekily. “and then you. Only ‘coz it’s faster for you to get sloppy, he says.”
Precy nodded din agreement. “Jan doesn’t spar much, but she’s wicked good at archery. Daryll and Elva don’t fight at all. But they’re good at other things, anyway.” 
“Hmm.” Kire was already shrugging off her cloak. “We do have some time yet before the boys come back from their tinkering, I think.” She smirked at Ysaryn.