Bargaining, it was a predictable if slightly disappointing tactic. It wasn’t really Neil’s fault of course, he didn’t know the rules in her mind. One didn’t simply abandon a job because another job presented itself. That would be sloppy, and she couldn’t abide sloppiness. Fortunately he didn’t press the matter then and there as he might have done. Calliope at her steak. It was very bloody and she cut it into small neat bites before popping each into her mouth. The vegetables sat ignored, unworthy of attention. She wondered if it had occurred to Neil to poison her meal, that would be an interesting choice, if a little unorthodox for a thief, and besides, when would he have found the time to arrange it? Unless of course he had a standing arrangement to poison dinner guests with the restaurant. That was an interesting prospect, but seemed unlikely to come up enough to be practical. A good way of doing business, poison, something of a challenge compared to a blade or a spell, she should use it more often.

 

“Well,” Calliope began, reaching down and lifting a napkin to blot the slight accumulation of blood from her rare steak away from the corner of her mouth.

“I suppose that my ambitions are the standard sort, extract vengeance from those who owe it to me, establish my place in the world,” she lifted her wine glass and took a sip. First on her list was the cult which had exploited her, then the mages who had trafficked her to them in the first place. The thought warmed her and her lips turned up into a predatory smile. Those might have seemed like little ambitions, but the members of the cult were widespread and well placed within society, burning them all out would not be easy, but a task was a task and Calliope was meticulous when it came to carrying them out. The skills she had honed as an assassin would be very useful in that regard.

“Oh, and I want to live forever,” she added as though it was an afterthought, continuing to eat as though she had said no more than she wished one day to visit the Temple City of Ivashti.

“What about you?” she asked around a mouthful of bloody steak.

“What were your big plans going to be?” The unspoken assumption being ‘assuming I wasn’t going to kill you when this date concludes’.