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Drayce considered the word. “Quiet.”

“I was going to say contained.”

“Worse.”

She stopped again. He didn’t stop this time. He slowed until she caught up. “Worse than you.”

“He’s better at it.”

“That’s not possible.”

“He once went eleven days without saying anything that wasn’t operationally necessary.”

“Eleven days.”

“Pike kept a record.”

She absolutely did not look at his face when he said this because she would not survive what it was doing. “Does Pike keep records of everything?”

“He has a system.”

“Bexley would like him.”

“They’ve met. It went badly.”

She waited. He was going to explain this. He was absolutely going to explain this.

“He used her color-coding system without asking.”

She covered her mouth with her hand. It helped approximately nothing. “He used her system.”

“He thought it was efficient. He added two categories she hadn’t considered. She was furious for a week, then incorporated them.”

“Sounds like her.”

“She sent him a revised index. He sent back suggestions.”

“They’re going to be a problem, aren’t they?”

Drayce looked at the water like he’d already done this math. “Probably.”

She breathed. She was acutely aware that she was enjoying herself, which was inconvenient.

“My family,” she said, by way of fairness, “is my mother, who lives in Connecticut and has opinions about everything, and my father, who shares her opinions but delivers them more quietly so people think they’re different. One younger sister who is inexplicably well-adjusted and calls me every Sunday. Two cousins I like and four I see at holidays and feel warmly distant from.”

“Warmly distant.”

“We don’t know each other well enough to be complicated, but we’ve shared enough holidays to have genuine affection. It’s a pleasant equilibrium.”

“Does your mother know you’re here?”

“She knows I’m in Spelltide Cove. She described it as a phase. She said the word ‘phase’ as if she’s had opinions about my phases since 1987 and is running low on patience.”

“1987.”

“I was three. I went through a phase where I refused to answer to my name. I would only respond to Captain.”

He stopped walking.