I was afraid, and I did not let the fear make my decisions.

That is a skill, and it is a learnable one, and I had learned it not through any natural fearlessness but through years of walking into rooms full of people who did not want me there, people with money and lawyers and every incentive to intimidate the compliance officer into looking away.

You learn, doing that work, that the fear will come and that you can function anyway, that you can keep your voice steady and your mind clear while your heart hammers, that the trembling hands do not have to reach the trembling into your judgment.

So when Julian’s shadow fell across that table, I was afraid, and I let myself be afraid, and I kept working anyway, because I had learned that the two can coexist, and that the people who prevail in dangerous rooms are almost never the ones who feel no fear.