"Men who mistake caution for balance. Women who have collected favors and do not like seeing the jar opened. They will call me reckless."
"Let them," Taaros said. "We are the pillar they claim to admire when it keeps their roofs level. They do not need to know when we lean our shoulder into the beam to help."
Mariel's voice softened more, and somehow that made it heavier. "We are not taking your work from you," she said.
"We are placing our hands under the fulcrum. When Valakar tries to tilt the world, we make sure the lever does not move as far as he thinks. You will still need to pull."
"I intend to," he said.
A brief quiet took the room. It was not an empty quiet. It was the kind that comes when people who do not waste time are satisfied they are speaking to someone who will not.
The director let himself look at them without measuring—old beings who could break his headquarters by accident and had chosen to come gently.
