"Being brilliant does not automatically mean treating ourselves correctly," he says, but he's smiling at David's laugh, smiling that some part of that got through. He'd expected it to escalate, he realizes. For David to become angry and insist he was wrong. To leave.

For all Balthier is good at lying, he's not good at backing down from what he really thinks. And that's gotten him hurt before.

"Besides, there's no version of this where you're supposed to do it all alone."