[He definitely looks pleased with her approval. She's the original rebel, one of the first to successfully open defy Belos for that long, so clearly he's doing it right if she thinks he is.]

[But the question has him lost in thought for a second as he tries to word things right.]

Where to go.

[He looks around the room.]

I've met adults here that.. I know they care - or at least it seems like they do. And I know they'd take me in...

But Jason, for instance. He doesn't live here. This isn't his normal house. It's got first aid kits, food, supplies...

It's a safehouse.

Why does a bar owner have a safehouse? Why does he need a safehouse?

[It's easy to forget that, while being the Golden Guard meant he was a bully and a jerk, he had sometimes gotten a W in, too. He was sharp, sharper than some adults sometimes.]

[He'd had to be. It was what Belos had wanted.]

Back home, the adults I know, I've seen you all defy Belos. Or protect people from the Emperor's coven. I've seen you take risks. I know that everyone in the resistance and the teachers of Hexside are good people willing to do the right thing.

All I've got to go on here is people being nice to me but that can be faked. That's the easiest thing to fake, Belos did it my whole life. I haven't seen them show that they're good people.

I don't want to trust someone, and live with them, and start to see them as - as something. And then find out they had some terrible secret all along.

[He can't do it again, he just can't.]

So I need to figure out where to go, because I don't want to stay here. Or go with Huvrye.

[He perks up a little.]

Nico and his boyfriend are staying somewhere without an adult; they found this abandoned house that's in pretty good shape. I might go with them.