"No. Not at this time. As I already said, all I want from Grace is a promise that she will not Hunt without an agreement. Which should not be an issue, if, as you say, she wishes to stop being a Hunter." Dimitri's frustration mounts as he repeats himself. It seems straightforward. He's been reasonably clear, hasn't he? The logic is simple enough, isn't it? Disagreement, he could work with, but they're just speaking past one another. "All I am going to do is speak to her. Do me the courtesy of seeing me as a thinking person, and not a wild boar."

His tone bristles, despite himself. He clamps his jaw shut, and wrestles it back under control.

"You have brokered peace with Grace for yourself. Demonstrably, she has not extended that peace to the rest of us. No one asked her to Hunt, Helena. She took that upon herself. If she acted to all our gain, did I betray the rest of us in stopping her? I could have fed," his voice curdles, "so much pain and fear to that excursion. Was I derelict in my duty for not joining her? By that logic, should we all not have broken into an orgy of senseless violence the moment we realized what was happening?"

His shoulders bunch. His hands flatten on the table. "No. The point of that excursion was suffering, and that is exactly why we must be able to rely on one another. If we can't, we may as well join Daisy's voyage and every other before it, where they tore each other apart to preserve an existence of tearing each other apart until nothing remained to tear. This place is nightmare enough on its own. There is no point to living in a world where we cannot trust each other."