"I am undead, Leo. Just because I have significant differences to the rest of my kind does not abate the fact that I have no pulse and no soul," Devin replied, dredging up calm in the face of Leo's annoyance.

A glance at the inan did draw his eyes to the cord around her neck, and what that cord was tied to be. Devin stared at it for several seconds and sighed. Given their conversation when Devin's spectral friends had visited, perhaps he should have expected this. Turning away, Devin sat on the edge of his bed, and dropped the inan beside him. She seemed content to stay there, for now.

"I'm not accustomed to people giving a damn," he said quietly, his eyes on the floor. "What I spend my life doing demands not having anyone at my back worrying for me. I've told you that." Devin raised his head, expression impassive as he looked to Leo. Yes, he remembered how he changed in Keeliai, but he also had five months at home to contend with. "If there had been a real risk to anyone but me, I would have made different choices."

He would protect others at the cost of his own safety without a second thought. Devin believed he understood what Leo was trying to do, but the young man was chipping at a wall over a century old. It would not come down or be reshaped so easily, and Devin still wasn't sure he even wanted it to.