Kael Vass

He had the angle and he had the grip. He went into the roll already composing the line he would say afterwards, because that is how it works: you land it, you smile, you move on and nobody asks how. Her hand was not there. He has run it back perhaps forty times since and it comes out the same every time — fingers closing on nothing, the heat coming up, a sound he has decided not to think about. Then the elf says it out loud on the shuttle, mildly, like a man handing back a dropped glove. Kael has not answered him yet.

His cellmates have heard fragments of strange conversations in languages no one recognizes. Other nights, he'll wake abruptly and spend hours staring at the ceiling as if listening to something no one else can hear.

Kael has avoided every opportunity to prove himself with violence. The few inmates who've tried to intimidate him discovered he's unnervingly fast.

One day an inmate joked,

Kael looked around the cafeteria for a few seconds and replied,

Then he went back to eating. He never smiled. Nobody knows if he was joking.

Every couple weeks someone in a very expensive suit comes asking questions about him. They never visit. They just ask, then leave. Even the warden seems nervous afterward.