"You trust him," she said carefully. "He'd protect you, and Rude, and the newbie." The one whose name she didn't remember, dammit. "I have no reason to. I can't. He ... he doesn't know me, he doesn't owe me anything. If he thought I was bad for you ..."

She let out a breath again. And her voice, when it came, was barely audible.

"He called me mom."

Not Tseng, no.