[There's another saying where Paul comes from, one much less esoteric, and as Anna speaks it rings in his thoughts like a bell.

He tilts his head slightly as he listens, wariness brushed across his face like watercolors. His brows knit together, a faint line forked between them. He sips his drink, sets it down and aside, and looks at her levelly, a small quirk of the mouth passing for a smile. With a note of quiet approval, he says:]

You've thought about this.

That's a good thing, for what it's worth. Too many people go through life without thinking about anything past their fingertips.

[He means that, even with his suspicions thrumming like current-bearing wires. She hasn't said anything that wouldn't make neat, explicable sense in the context of what she's told him before, or the conversation so far. Neither of them have so much as alluded to the roof Paul lives under.]

So if we are game pieces...which do you think is worse? Indifference, or intent? An alien divine that cannot understand what it asks of us, or a human one that does?

[(A good liar lies, they say. A great one tells the truth. He likes her more every time he learns something new.)]