"I see." Well, at least that had been wrestled out on both sides. With them alone here, the odds of his alternate identity being a secret to the individuals actually running this place were slim to none, and in privacy, he could test out exactly how badly he'd been weakened.

In a way, it was infuriating. Unlike the boy, who seemed to have come into his powers with nothing more than an awkward bout, he'd suffered before gaining the power he needed to balance out the scales again. Some days, he had to admit he thought of himself more as Vlad Plasmius than as Masters altogether.

But there was no time for having fits. He gave Daniel his best benign, parental smile. "I suppose that, in circumstances such as this, it's for the best that we've called a truce, hm? At least we can keep an eye out for each other." Granted, that applied in all senses of the phrase.