Benedict is mid-sentence, telling Byerly about some fussy thing or another that the latter may or may not actually care about, but he stops short when they're addressed. His smile locks into Personnel Officer mode, only to freeze oddly with the invocation of his father's name.

If there's one thing that has always been true of Benedict, since he first set foot on the Gallows and even before, it's that he is a singularly terrible liar. He at least has the presence of mind to not answer at all, but looks to Byerly with a familiar searching, wide-eyed look. help