“About you.”
The words escape before I can contain them. She falters slightly—I feel it through our joined hands, a brief hitch in her rhythm—and then recovers.
“What about me?”
Everything.
The thought rises unbidden and I let it exist. No point fighting what’s already won.
“Your sight. The cost of it.” I guide her around a suspicious formation of ice—could be natural, could be dormant Sentinel material. “How much it’s taken from you since Caelreth.”
“I’ve been careful.”
“You’ve been reckless.” I don’t soften the observation. “Reading the frozen citizens. Mapping the ley-roads. Decoding the archive texts.”
“I know the Veil’s price.”
“Do you?” I stop walking, turning to face her. “Because from where I stand, you’re spending yourself like currency with no thought to the account balance.”
Her eyes narrow. The molten silver sharpens into steel. “That’s my calculation to make.”
“Not anymore.”
The words hang between us. She goes very still—that controlled stillness I’ve come to recognize as her processing mode. Evaluating. Assessing.
Reading me.
“What does that mean?” Her voice is careful. Measured.
“It means I’m done watching you spend years you don’t have on reconnaissance I can handle.” I close the distance between us. Stop when her pulse becomes visible at the base of her throat—jumping, rapid, betraying more than her voice does. “It means when you want to use the Veil, you run it past me first.”
“Run it past you.”
“Yes.”
“Like a permission structure.”
“Like a partnership where one of us has centuries to burn, and the other has decades.” I hold her gaze, letting her see the absolute certainty beneath my words. “You want to preserve those decades? Let me carry what I can.”
The silence stretches. I watch calculation flicker behind her eyes—her mind working through the implications of what I’m offering.
What I’m demanding.
“You’re not asking.”
“No.”
“This isn’t negotiable.”
“No.”
Her head tilts slightly. Reading patterns again, though whether she’s using the Veil or regular human perception, I can’t tell. “What changed? In the archive. Before the collapse, you were maintaining distance. Now you’re…”
“Now, I’m not.”
She waits. I don’t elaborate.
After a long moment, she nods. Once. Sharp. “Fine. But the reverse applies. When you decide to throw yourself into danger to shield me?—”
