"I didn't do anything."
"You got on the motorcycle," he said. "You have no idea what that means. Ryke has had people in need come through this territory. He helps. He's good at it. Efficient. He does not — he has not — he never—" He stopped. Tried again. "He stayed outside in the cold all night. He was already in the training yard when you woke up. He ran the perimeter before anyone else was moving and came back and stood in the kitchen with his coffee and he looked — he looked like a man who had stopped waiting for something without knowing he'd been waiting." He looked at me very directly. "That's not two days. That's something else. I don't know what to call it but I've known him for six years and I know what it isn't, which is anything I've seen before."
I stood with that.
The gate
