By degrees, it occurred to Phoenix that Edgeworth wasn't pressing anything. He wasn't particularly subtle when he was after information, even he'd contented himself to bide his time. He doesn't actually need to know. He touched his shoulder, where there still should have been a chain. It was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. He wasn't sure if he should attribute it to the epiphany or the remnants of a drugged haze, still clearing bit by bit from his head. He breathed a little noise of relief, at last considering those words.

Not blaming himself sounded easy, but it was hard to do without falling back on the same what-ifs that in the end incriminated him. His innocence depended on a guess, nothing more than a game of probability and mysteries, and the odds that he knew most intimately of all had failed him. It never ended like that. He never went down like that, not without achieving something for someone.

I can't say that I didn't get anything. These psyche-lock aren't so different that they can't conceivably help me, he told himself in an attempt to pull himself back up, leaning into the embrace and resting his cheek on Edgeworth's shoulder. He remembered the fathomless, reeling spiral of the staircase, and the voice at his ear, promising in that quiet, decided way that he wouldn't fall.

He'd been looking at him. He'd been telling the truth.

He turned his head enough to plant a silent kiss against the smooth fabric, speaking past it. "Thanks for being here."