It feels like finding a weak point, and with precision. Marcus, outwardly, seems borderline impassive when Julius parries the point, as if the shaky footing took force away and left only accuracy. He moves again, approaching a conversational distance.

Maybe encroaching it, by half a step, a pressure on Julius's sense of personal space. "I imagine that standing here," he says, "you can think of one hundred ways you might have extracted her from her prison, one hundred people you might have made deals with to secret her to safety, myself included. One hundred angles to pursue and standing here, I don't think you could recall with precision a single one.

"Which ought to feel strange to you, Selwyn, unless you're a worse coward than anyone took you for."