The way he positions himself to her left, good ear nearer, doesn't show any awkward signs of intentionality anymore, even to a trained eye. He's adapted that much.

"I don't know. I was relieved," he says. "In the back of my mind I always thought that if Corypheus caught someone with an anchor, that would be the end of it. He would learn something, he would find a way to use it for himself, and in the morning we would all be dead. But they have plenty of anchors. For all we know they have rifters, too. And that hasn't been the end of the world yet."

Not that it wouldn't be terrible to lose a rifter to Corypheus. It'd be terrible to lose anyone to Corypheus.

"The glowing is a problem, though."