I could see Byron’s expression change. It was interesting just how distinct he was from Tristan. Tristan had a way of moving his arms and shoulders and showing his emotions in a whole-body kind of way. Byron contained it to his eyes and eyebrows, with the slightest of changes to his mouth, lips pressing together, eyebrows drawing together, while his eyes looked at nothing in particular.

He was tempted to say yes, I was ninety percent sure.

“No,” Byron said. “Do what you need to. This is more important.”

I couldn’t hold my tongue. “If you’re actually thinking about death or losing it, Byron, that might warrant other people doing something.”

“I’m not,” he said. “That’s the bad moments, and in those moments, I can see how things might end up that way.”

“So you are thinking about those things.”

“Not directly. Besides, I’d feel worse knowing you guys could be helping others and you weren’t because you were trying to make me feel better. I’m used to handling stuff myself, I’ve gotten this far, I can keep going.”

“Introverts unite,” Chris said.

“You know you can always reach out to us,” Sveta said.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

All around us, the images were condensing into an isolated few. There were some passing visits from other figures, I saw. The scans of the woman with the sunglasses had finished, and now that cube was searching out the infrequent visitors.

Kids snuck in, going straight to the stores.

Then Kingdom Come, the bald man, and the strawberry blonde woman with the sleeve tattoo.

I glanced at Byron. Sveta was investigating the group of the people we’d seen in the penthouse apartment, Chris was looking over Kenzie’s shoulder.

“You were saying something about… you didn’t want to dwell on your problem,” I said. “You see other things as more important?”

Byron gave me a one-shouldered shrug.

“I have some experience with that,” I said. “Not me, specifically. My—my sister. She was like that. She did the introverted thing, doing stuff on her own. Dealing on her own.”

“You don’t like talking about her.”

“I—” I started, then I laughed, and the one-note laugh came out with a hitch, making it sound awkward. “I really don’t. Um—yeah. It’s easy to make that call, and then to make it again, and again, and again. I imagine you tell yourself that you can deal, like you said. You’ve dealt so far, right?”

“Right.”

“There will be bad days, Byron. Then something happens, and when you’re in a position like you are, like my sister was, it doesn’t take much to leave you unable to deal anymore. And where you could have asked for help before… you can’t after you get to that point.”

Byron nodded slowly. “Yeah.”