It was true that the obvious choice would be to offer Nigredo a cure as Albedo's reward, but that was almost too easy. Landel liked to think he wasn't that predictable, though he'd been called plenty of things over the years and was more or less immune to badmouthing by now. The point was that he'd made it a little more complicated than that.

Albedo was asking some interesting questions, but he also managed to answer them for himself, and it was nothing that the Head Doctor could deny. He knew there was a reason that he'd picked Albedo, and it was because he had a strong idea of how these things worked.

"Exactly," he said after a pause, smiling at the boy almost as if he was proud. "There's no need to get my hands dirty at this point, and I need to figure out who I can rely on to get the harder jobs done." Not all of these patients were really cut out for this, after all, but anyone who could set aside feelings for a greater purpose was worth keeping an eye on.

"So, are you interested?" He tilted his head at Albedo, though he already had an idea of the response he'd get.