Not one of them, in that room, was there out of grief.

They had come to profit.

And when I walked through the door alive, I did not see, on a single face, the relief a decent person feels when a man they cared about turns out not to be dead.

I saw only calculation, and fear, the rapid recomputation of self-interest, each of them instantly working out what my survival meant for their own position.

It confirmed, more completely than any recording, the thing I had learned lying in that bed: that I had built my inner circle entirely out of people whose loyalty extended precisely as far as their advantage, and not one inch further.