We don't have to fight, she says, and Lancelot wants to say Then why did you attack. They made the first move, after all, they attacked Redbright's territory. Yet Nancy doesn't want to hear that. Nancy isn't interested in the logical perspective, in Sylvia Redbright's perspective. Maybe she just needs someone to blame for the deaths, a figurehead. Sylvia fits that.

"How do you know she was pretending?" he prompts, voice still barely above a whisper. He isn't sure he'll like the answer, but he may as well ask anyway.