He nods; it's the answer he'd assumed, at least in part. An ability like Caleb's didn't seem like the kind of thing that could be learned, not the same way Darlington had practiced and perfected the creation of wards or the mixing of the Bullet over the last three years. He shouldn't envy him, any more than he envies Alex her own ability, but once again it feels like an ease and access he'll never have to a world he's so desperate to know.

"But you figured it out, eventually," he says. "Or were told?"