"You wanted to use the Key to make the Underlayer impossible to ignore." He looked at Gelion with the flat patience of someone explaining a conclusion that is not in dispute. "And to fund that operation, you were selling information about the people living in the city you claimed to be trying to elevate."
"I was trying to keep them alive," Gelion said, and the specific quality of his statement carried genuine heat, reflecting the intensity of someone who had held this position for a long time and truly believed in it. "Every reincarnator in this city is a target the moment they step onto the surface!"
"The Legion operates up there with impunity!"
"The only way to change that is to give the Underlayer enough leverage that the surface can't pretend it doesn't exist."
"That's a coherent argument," Rex said. "It's also completely fucking stupid."
Gelion stared at him.
