[This gives him pause, because he realizes what he's walked into, how contradictory his words might sound. And they did. He was a walking contradiction - that was nothing new. He thrived on that, on being unpredictable, on relying on a variety of dependent variables to act and react.

But she doesn't have the benefit of knowing him, and he knows how it must sound. Think like me and think like yourself. A straight-up contradiction.]

I know how it sounds. Maybe what you should be asking yourself is what you want. [Which is a little too personal for him to ask right out. They'd only talked, what - once before? He wasn't going to take a personal risk on someone he barely knew, much as he didn't get her apparent devotion to the Malnosso. He didn't get that one bit.] After everything they do, all the people they willfully hurt here - you still want to be on their side?