"Then you're Singed's boy," Silco says, matching those details to stories Singed had shared of his former apprentice, mildly surprised that he really is that Viktor, of all the Viktors for there to be here.

The octopus is still very still, a camouflaged predator-prey resting and waiting, not as relaxed as Silco would like to pretend. But a touch more relaxed than it first was, perhaps that mutual acquaintance, or the fact that he is a Zaunite after all (there is, in Silco's mind, no in-between, no halfway point, just people of one city living in the other, present but never accepted.) "The genius scientist." Flattery, just slightly.