Lem cleared his throat, and Merisiel guiltily ceased fiddling with her dagger, giving her full attention to the halfling standing on the table in front of her.

Merisiel took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly as she tried to relax, her arms balanced, palms up, along the chair’s slender armrests. It wasn’t working. Her belly remained tight and crawling with gutwasps—the nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach that the church of Calistria called “the tingle you get ‘fore the trick is all set.” But this was no complex prank or long-planned vengeance that had the wasps doing their thing. It was something, Merisiel forced herself to remember, that she’d brought entirely upon herself.