"I know."
"Tav." His voice had a quality that Tav had only heard from him a few times. Not the professional register. Not the warm managed surface. But what lived below both of those — exposed and direct and not performing anything at all. "You stepped into it." "Yes."
"Why."
Tav watched him.
At the pale color of his face and the focused hands and the amber eyes that were doing the thing they did when they had stopped managing distance — close and clear and completely present.
"You know why," Tav said.
"Tell me anyway."
"Because the line went through you," Tav said. "And I moved before I'd decided to move. And if I'd had time to decide, I'd have made the same decision, and you know that too."
Alistair was very still.
"You can't keep—"
"I know," Tav said. I'm aware "
"it's Maddening," Alistair said.
"Yes."
"And also—" He stopped.
"Also?" Tav said.
Alistair looked at him.
"Nothing," he said. "Later."
He looked at the wound. His hands were steady. He had the direct focus of someone doing the most important thing in his immediate world and giving it all of his attention, and Tav let him, and the city continued its ordinary business around them.
Above them somewhere, the sound of Lucien's engagement with the shooter. Brief and efficient.
Then silence.
"Can you walk?" Alistair said.
"Yes."
"Tell me the truth."
"I can walk." Tav put his right hand on Alistair's shoulder for leverage and rose — controlled, tested, managing the weightdistribution away from the left side. The pain was present and ignorable. "I'm walking."
Alistair rose with him. His left hand stayed on Tav's arm — not gripping, present.
Lucien appeared around the corner.
"Car," he said. "We need to move now."
Alistair's hand tightened slightly on Tav's arm.
"Yes," he said. He watched Tav once more — a rapid full-assessment look, the professional competence checking the emotional register it had been running underneath. "Together."
"Together," Tav said.
