Sparks!

He grinned before standing up.

"You hungry?"

 

"I can make breakfast," he said, gathering up the takeout containers.

 

"That's okay," he said. "Don't worry."

 

He squinted at her, raising one eyebrow.

"What if you head over to the Ortus?" he proposed. "I can grab us breakfast and meet you over there. If we can get the information quickly, then maybe we could go out for the rest of the day."

 

"I don't believe that he's innocent," he said with a frown. "Try to catch him in a lie, if you can."

 

"Uh... ask him questions about why he was looking at the Ortis. You know? Stuff like that."

 

The Ortus lit up as she approached, as it often did. Ben was being held in a cage near the edge.

 

His chains were on the floor, broken open, and he sat in the window, the bars bent open and one leg out.

“Oh. Hello, Calliope.”

 

“I’m just very good,” he explained, slipping his other leg out of the window and sitting on the ledge.

 

He raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll tell you what, Calliope,” he said lightly, considering her. “You have a couple of choices here. One, you attack me. You could certainly try, but if you look around, I think you’ll have no trouble believing that I’d beat you in an instant. Two, you could go run and tell someone. I’d be gone by the time you came back.”