But she had implied it, reacting to a perceived threat to Verso the same way Maelle had. He does his best to keep his expression neutral, open, even warm and sympathetic, but it flickers across anyway in tiny shifts of his brows, a wince that's just the faintest narrowing of his eyes for a half a second, his lips pressing. All of it there and gone again in a second: hurt. "You're pretty protective of him."

His voice, he thinks, is reasonably even, normal sounding, though it feels more than a little like he's being punched in the stomach. "So was Maelle."

Defending Verso to him, until he started to feel like he was the one in the wrong. Overreacting. Fragile and not seeing things clearly.

Maybe he's not, anymore. Everything is confusion, even these two people he loves so much and trusts so implicitly. They've changed, too. "I'm trying, Sciel. I really am. I'm not.... I'm not some kind of a threat to Verso. I told him he's a part of this team."