"Why not go to Mitch," Neva said. "Or Holt. People with more direct legal reach than me."
"Because Mitch answers to Ryke and Holt answers to his own interests," Della said. "And what I need is someone who'll hold the line on the agreement regardless of what it's convenient to sacrifice later." She held Neva's gaze. "You don't owe anyone the version of this that's expedient. That makes you the right person to make the agreement with."
Silo watched Neva take that in.
He watched her do the thing she did — the pause, the filing, the system running — and he watched her arrive at her conclusion with the particular calm of someone who'd been deciding things under pressure long enough that pressure had stopped feeling like the enemy.
"Come inside," Neva said. "I'm not making any agreement with
