Breaking the Siege Stores

Tomas’s talent for deception repeatedly gave the party access that honest authority could not. He found the prepared archive escape, infiltrated Valec’s salon, decoded the conspiracy’s finances, and turned the coup’s lantern network against its organizers.

Those successes also revealed an uncomfortable similarity between his methods and those of the Eclipse Court: both sides withheld information because they believed they could use it more responsibly than others. The chapter closed with Tomas helping save Dawnwatch through deception while becoming less certain that a useful lie is harmless simply because it serves the right side.