[This is a threshold Paul has stood on before, watching someone's sense of him shift another inch towards respect more like an equal than a junior. He straightens up as he follows Palamedes away, to a distance he can count on to be sufficient to react in if his control does somehow slip. Behind his back, he makes a rolling permissive gesture of the hand at Epsilon, who hunches over the bait at last, facial fingers peeling back and forearms rising up to hide the mouth they reveal. It's for the best. The teeth sound the same.

Palamedes lays out his terms, and Paul doesn't try to hide his relief this time. They're past the point where he's concerned his desire for approval might sway Palamedes' decision, whether either of them realized it.]

Thank you.

[The bracelet hangs at his side now, not between them. Palamedes' smile shines out like the kind of warding light that might have once sat on top of the broken tower beside them.]

I'll do my best to keep you from having to make a choice, but I feel better knowing you'll make the right one, if it comes to that. [He runs his free hand through his hair, ducking his head.] I don't always see things the way most other people do, I think.

[It's meant to be light, like an invitation to a joke (something he's picked up from Gideon, without realizing), but there's an off-note to it, skating dangerously close to another layer of confession. He doesn't always see things the way other people do; he sees them wrong, and what kind of burden is that to ask anyone else to carry for him more than he already does?]

I suppose neither do you. [A flicker of a smile.] Do you ever wish you'd lied, instead of telling the truth? Not about this. About anything.