He crosses to the desk. He doesn't look at the notebook. He looks at me.
"HV-7," I say. "Region marker delta-six. Relay point 7-9." I watch his face very carefully. "The farmhouse in the overlap. Whose is it."
"Claire." Very quiet.
"That's not an answer."
He says nothing.
"The magic." I can feel it running—the specific warmth that arrives half a breath before whatever he's about to say. I have been counting every time it arrives. The list is long. "Whatever you just turned up. Turn it back down."
A long pause. The warmth eases.
The thought that was about to be softened arrives at its full weight: he has had files on Lena Riley since October. He has been giving me the edges. He has been keeping the centre from me. And now I have found the centre myself and he came through the door.
"How long have you had eyes on her," I say.
"Since October."
I breathe. In and out. "Is she all right."
"She's alive." No warmth running as he says it—I check, I have learned to check, I can feel the difference now. "Deep cover. She went further in. My people are watching. We are not moving against her."
I look at the map. The farmhouse icon. The region marker I traced with my finger.
"You've known this whole time," I say.
"Yes."
The anger is there—clean, entirely mine, no smoothing on it. Underneath it, stupid and involuntary, is relief. She's alive. I hate the relief. It is going to undercut every argument I'm about to make and he knows it and I know it and the relief is there anyway.
He moves around the desk.
"Don't," I say. "I'm asking you a direct question and you're going to answer it without—" I wave at the space between us. "Without the warmth."
"I told you the truth," he says. "She's alive. My people are watching, not acting."
"That isn't—" I stop. I look at his face. The spy's read, the three years of watching people lie: what I see is not a lie. He believes what he's telling me.
"This is still a deflection," I say.
"Yes."
"It's going to work anyway."
"Yes."
I close my eyes for one second. Then I open them. The farmhouse icon is right there on the map and Lena is alive and he knows where she is and both of those things are true at the same time and I cannot hold them both right now.
"The HV-7 file," I say. "Tomorrow morning. Before anything else."
"All right."
He comes to me. His hands on my face—cold, steady—and I don't pull back. I know I should pull back. I don't.
"This is a deflection," I say, against his hands.
"Yes," he says. His mouth on mine.