[but she wasn't me. this isn't a second time. the instinctual response is choked back in her throat with another drink of her own tea, swallowing her words along with the caffeine. it's not the same. the same way he isn't theirs, no matter how much they might want him to be.

instead of lingering there in a space she knows will get dark, she thinks about his question. how much did she know?]

...Enough to know a good deal of your habits. Some of where you came from. Your way of speaking, and a good number of your likes and dislikes. That you overwork yourself to the point of exhaustion in pursuit of your goals, and that you have a mind with the keenness of a newly made sword and a library's worth of knowledge. How you chose to fight. Those sorts of things.