He looked at me for a moment.
"You didn't arrive as a problem," he said.
"Silo seems to disagree."
"Silo disagrees with most things. It's not personal."
"It feels personal."
"It always does with Silo," he said. "It never is. He just—" A pause. The specific pause of a man choosing words for something he doesn't usually put into words. "He doesn't let people in easily. When he decides someone matters, he gets angry about it first. It's a character flaw he's never addressed."
I looked at the door Silo had gone through earlier in the evening.
"Does he know you just told me that?" I asked.
"No," Ryke said. "And we're going to keep it that way."
Something rose in me — something light, something that felt unfamiliar in my chest, like a room that hadn't been opened in a while. I recognize
