It was a trick. Qilby had pulled the same on enough people to know it when he saw one; his eyes narrowed in spite of himself. This brute thought he could fool him? When he'd played that game -- been forced to win it -- for all his life?

After all this time, he was finally fed up with hiding behind his masks, with plotting behind closed doors. It was so satisfying to be openly hostile for once, to look and sound exactly the way he felt without caring about the consequences, or better yet-- without caring whether or not he was validated. For the first time since he'd been imprisoned in that damned dimension, for the first time since he realized his gift of immortality was as much a prison as that would be-- he felt liberated.

"So eager to resonate--" His words were practically venomous, where they were once just mildy spiteful. "Where was that enthusiasm when we were being attacked?"

The old Eliatrope might not have been king, but he had the voice of one, when he had a mind to use it-- deep, powerful, the sort that filled up rooms and tried to overpower those wills that were weaker than his. The caverns carried his voice and made it seem even louder than it already was. Noisy, to be precise. Conspicuous. If a talkative meister and his sixteen foot tall metal companion had gone unnoticed by any living thing nearby, they certainly weren't now.

"Give me one good reason I should trust you now, machine."