He listed them without notes. Without hesitation. Because Lucien Drakeveil had been watching. Observing. Collecting data on the one variable the Script hadn't predicted — a villain who built bridges instead of burning them.
"I've been waiting to see if you'd come to me," he said. "The other six came to you — through training, through proximity, through the particular magnetism of someone who sees broken things and offers to help fix them. But you couldn't recruit me the same way. I'm not broken. I'm not suppressed. I don't have a trauma that you could leverage or a need that you could fill."
"No," I agreed. "You don't."
"So why should I join?"
The question was real. Beneath the chess-player's analysis and the data-collector's patience, Lucien Drakeveil was asking a genuine question: what does the villain have to offer the person who doesn't need anything?
