“I know you care.” And maybe that’s why Phillip hasn’t bothered to be more clear about what that means for him, because he thought it would be as obvious as Gustavain thinks their feelings are. “So I’ll help make sure it doesn’t.”

He says it like it’s simple, because to him it is. Phillip never speaks about his fellows, and while it might be assumed to be part of their discretion, it is also in part because he doesn’t have the kind of connection to them that the two of them have to each other, or the Scions, or most anyone else in this realm. His feelings about the other Ascians are... complicated, to say the least, and he doesn’t believe in their goal enough to pursue it in the face of all this. Hells, he actively ran away from it. Making sure the people he loves are happy and safe truly seems like the natural choice.