He really has stumbled upon someone who can read him. It reminds him uncomfortably of his encounter with the spider, but they are not enemies here, he reminds himself. He has no enemies here. That is the point of being here. So instead of being pushed off-balance by how easily Reid mentions his non-answers, he listens to what Reid is saying about non-judgment, about empathy, and the truth of his attitude toward this game.

It speaks to Reid's skills that he has identified Loki's quiet hope to begin counting Spencer Reid as a friend. Loki himself had not quite reached that realization. "The story behind them is long," he says quietly as he moves a piece, perhaps not as judiciously as he ought to. "And it is one in which I unquestionably play the villain. Or I had once done."