Duke opened the book.
It was me — the moment I'd asked which one was going to tell me what I am. Standing at the counter with my coffee in my hand, looking across the diner. He'd caught something in my face that I hadn't known was there. Something that wasn't fear. Something that stood its ground.
I looked at it for a long moment.
"Hm," I said, and handed it back.
Ziko, reading over my shoulder, said: "That is a *great* face. That's a facing-down-a-crisis face. I collect those."
"Ziko," Silo said.
"I'm just appreciating—"
"I know what you're doing. Stop."
---
Silo was the problem.
Not dramatically. Not cruelly. He was the specific kind of problem that comes from a person who has decided you're a liability before you've introduced yourself, and has the discipline to hold that posi
