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Her eyes lifted. “Everything that affects my decisions.”

“That is broad.”

“Yes.”

I almost smiled.

“Agreed.”

Talia’s expression changed. “Just like that?”

“No.” I looked at her. “It will be difficult.”

Something in her face softened.

Honesty, apparently, worked better than confidence.

“I can work with difficult.”

“I have noticed.”

This time, she did smile.

Then she stepped back.

Distance restored.

I felt it immediately.

That was the cost.

I had wanted her trust and treated information like something I could ration without consequence.

Now I understood the difference between keeping someone alive and making them safe enough to choose you.

The first required strength.

The second required surrender.

I knew how to survive the first.

I had no idea how to do the second.

But for once, I did not intend to hide behind duty while I learned.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Talia

Distance was easier when you gave it rules.

No touching. No questions that had nothing to do with the investigation. No asking whether Veyr had slept. No commenting when he checked the same window twice in ten minutes. No jokes about nutrient packets. No noticing when he almost smiled.

That last one was harder.

So I stopped looking for it.

We had been in the new temporary room Veyr chose after our overnight escape for most of the day, close enough that I could hear the soft scrape of Veyr’s boots whenever he moved and the quiet tap of his fingers against the portable terminal.