Cedric is, without question, the most personally complicated for Vanya, of the men they've just mentioned. Vanya has his own thoughts on the Templar Order, some of them strong, but he's still not sure how or whether to raise them. So many people he knows and respects in Riftwatch are in a position to easily say the Order is bad straight through; Vanya, for all he doesn't regret his turn away from it, is haunted by the ways in which he'd spent years believing in its goodness.

All of that would be a lot to drop in the doctor's lap, so he opts not to.

Instead, he says, "Kind of you to say. I don't expect to be lauded for it, when it's just ... Gwenaëlle was right that I had already made the harder choice, leaving the Order in the first place. Hanging onto the lyrium as long as I did after that was addiction and fear. The supposed benefits weren't worth the ways it made me a liability to Riftwatch more broadly."