She didn’t take her eyes off me as she said, “Eric, look after Ms. Dallon. I have a brief set of pending questions I was going over that I’ll send to you. Run them by her. Get any final statements from her, if she has anything to add outside of the notes she gave Defiant. Transcribe them. Stay close enough that she can ask you if she wants something. Send us your notes in the next ten or fifteen.”

I glanced at him. In the process, I caught him sizing me up. Bandaged hand, scarred hand with a wavy burn along the back, traveling across my chest for a half-second too long, back up to face.

No trace of embarrassment or shame. It was so hard to put my finger on just why I held it against him when Byron had done something similar on our first meeting, but he’d glanced away. I wasn’t sure there was a strict set of rules for judging that kind of thing, only gut feeling and instinct.

And my instincts were bad. I frowned a bit. He smiled to match the frown in intensity.

“I wanted to talk to Mark Dallon, if that’s okay,” I said. And to Jessica, but… “Semi-officially. There are only two others I trust to give me a fair assessment of what’s going on over there.”

“Chris Elman is the other?” Cinereal asked, eyebrows raising.

I could have laughed, but I was pretty sure that laughing in Cinereal’s face would earn me that grudge, and I wanted to be in her good graces if it meant working with the Wardens. There were too many resources and too many people I respected tied into their group. It was too important that we share information.

“Dot,” I told her. “Amy’s goblin or imp. If the conversation earlier had gone a bit differently, I would have brought her into it.”

“I have to go, or I’d ask, so Eric will have to be the one to ask you why. We won’t be more than an hour, Antares. We’ll exchange emails and messages while traveling.”

I looked. Chevalier had retreated from his perch. Dauntless remained where he was, surrounded by tall buildings, each and every one of them smaller than him.

“Good luck,” I told her.

“I don’t believe in luck,” Cinereal told me. “We work hard to let opportunities happen.”

“Can’t argue that,” I answered, clenching my burned hand for a second, feeling how tight the skin was.

And she was gone. Back into the fray.

Leaving me with Eric.

I looked back, and saw Jessica following Cinereal out.

“Jessica.”

She paused.

“I’m sorry to spring that on you, and I know it might not be my business… but it’s kind of my business?”