Rey stood in the privacy-warded chamber, Lady Z's question hanging in the air between them like a blade waiting to fall.
'So it has come to this,' he thought, his analytical mind racing through options with cold precision. 'Just as I expected.'
He'd anticipated this moment from the beginning—the point where his involvement would become too obvious to ignore, where Lady Z's intelligence would piece together enough fragments to demand answers. The timing was suboptimal, coming when he'd decided to be cautious and patient rather than aggressive, but the confrontation itself was inevitable.
Rey had two choices.
First: Maintain the deception. Deflect her suspicions with carefully crafted lies, redirect her attention to alternative explanations, preserve the Modred Helt identity intact. This would maintain his current cover but strain Lady Z's trust to the breaking point.
If she didn't believe him, their working relationship would deteriorate rapidly.
