He laughed.
Not the polite laugh of someone managing a tense situation, not the performative laugh of someone buying time. A genuine laugh — short, sharp, the sound of a man who had just climbed through a drainage channel on his elbows, navigated three days of Vel-Thak patrol coverage, and unlocked a vault that several years of effort had failed to open, and was now being asked to hand over the result by the person who had been waiting with entry tools when he arrived.
'You're joking,' he said.
'I am not,' Raze said. The weapon did not move. 'Put the Seal on the ground and step back.'
He looked at the weapon. He looked at her. He looked at the weapon again with the expression of a man conducting a genuine cost-benefit analysis rather than a performance of one.
'Raze,' he said. 'You came here without a way to open the vault. I opened the vault. The logical reading of that sequence of events is that you need me more than you need the Seal.'
