Page 263

“Yes.”

“And you were going to tell me what their reaction meant.”

“Yes.”

I looked down at my hands. “Okay.”

Veyr waited.

A few days ago, he would have filled the silence with explanation or redirected me toward whatever he thought I needed to know. Now he let the uncertainty sit where it belonged.

I looked back up. “They knew.”

“Something.”

“How sure are you?”

“Not completely.”

That answer got my attention.

Veyr set one of the weapon cells into his case. “The handler did not deny knowledge. He ordered me to disengage from the line of inquiry.”

“So they know something.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“But you don’t know which brother or what happened to him.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t know whether the Veil shut him out or whether someone else did.”

“No.”

I exhaled slowly.

That was new. Not Veyr being uncertain. Veyr saying it.

He had spent most of our time together sounding like uncertainty was something he could beat into submission if he stared at it hard enough. Now he was giving me the edges.

What he knew. What he didn’t.

No smoothing. No protecting me from ambiguity.

I looked at the dead terminal. “They offered you exactly what you wanted.”

Veyr stopped packing.

I regretted the wording as soon as it left my mouth. Not because it was wrong.

Because it was too blunt. But he did not flinch away from it.

“They did.”

I studied his face. “They gave you a way to stay Ghost.”

“He did.”