"You rejected the integration consciously."
"I think I might have, yes. Without even understanding what I was doing." Her smile was thin. "I've always been stubborn. Ask Luka. He'll tell you stories about arguments that lasted three days because I refused to admit I was wrong about the temperature setting on the thermostat."
"You were wrong about the thermostat?"
"That's not the point."
I laughed despite myself. Something loosened in my chest.
This was still my mother. Still the woman who had raised me. Still the Red-hot Habanero who had fought a world that wanted to diminish her and won through sheer force of personality.
Whatever had happened twenty-three years ago, it hadn't changed who she was at her core.
Maybe that was the point.
"The entity selected you because of your stubbornness," I said slowly. "Because you were compatible. Because your lineage was suitable. But your stubbornness is also what made you reject the integration."
"A double-edged sword."
