"Are you angry with me?"

"I am a little frustrated with you. Not angry. After all," she adds, "you did apologize."

He smiles slightly, then shakes his head. "And that makes a difference?"

"Compared to just shooting me? Or for that matter continuing to attempt to pass as Miles to me? Yes."

"Why?"

"Well - in particular you said you were sorry for even trying. Well. Bothering. It's a signal that we aren't as determinedly opposed as it might otherwise seem. You don't want Miles's life, you don't want me, you don't want to hurt me, you regret doing it even incidentally for unrelated reasons. 'Under happier circumstances we could have been friends' is not friendship, but it is much closer to it than 'our strongest preferences are irreconcilable'."

"Oh, I don't want you to die either," he sighs.

"Is that new?" she wonders.

"Yes and no. There's a difference between - not wanting, and not wanting."

"Yes, I suppose there is."

"Before, I didn't mind very much, because there was nothing I could do anyway. Now I mind that there's nothing I can do."

"Because there's a goblin on your shoulder."

He nods.

"I don't have as much insight into that as I'd like... I've never taken a class on other people's psychology and mine's atypical by design."

"That's right. Anti-akrasia project."

"Yes. Where did you even come by that tidbit?"

"It's not secret. I'm good at finding information."

"It's not a secret or I'd be considerably more agitated at it having got out, I just don't know where, exactly, it would have been dispensed. How much do you know about me, if the plan was originally to fool me too...?"

"Not as much as I'd have liked, but enough to get by. I can't really... list things, if that's what you want me to do. My memory doesn't store in conveniently listable formats."

"Fair enough. I suppose you were going to try to acclimate to the pen while I wasn't looking, although it's very high-quality gesture-learning and I think I would have noticed that you didn't handle it the same... Did you teach yourself to braid hair, too?" she wonders idly. "Or were you planning to 'break your hand' a lot?"

"Galen stole nine feet of haut hair from a collector and made me practice on it. It's kind of fun. I can see why Miles likes it."

"Someone sold her -? Wow," snorts Linya. "It must have cost an astronomical amount. And he just stole it for you to braid."

"He's very, um, single-minded."

"Yes, I suppose so," she says.

"Maybe you can help... I want a better way to get myself killed than becoming Emperor of Barrayar."