"If you ask, why does it have to be a game, then you've already answered the question," she fired back, perhaps more quickly and intensely than she had meant to. She settled against the seat of the rowboat, and then, breathing out once, slowly, continued: "We must make our own amusement, because the world provides us precious little without assistance."
And because it was significantly less of a concession of vulnerability to answer honestly if compelled to by a game, than simply because she chose to. Because that was how the Crows did things, among themselves: games and contests. She had been raised on games and contests, silly and serious and deadly alike, and, as far as she was concerned, they had done well by her.
"I think very few people have seen destruction of this scale and lived to tell about it. You've guessed the better part of the answer, but it seems you've no interest in the prize. Your loss. I would have sworn on my mother's grave complete honesty." Or maybe that was just an additional move in her long-running game of tormenting Conlan. It was possible that Lucressia, herself, was not even sure. The oars splashed in the water, and they drew nearer to the island where the Tower had once stood.