[ How uncomfortable Byerly is about it is something Wash makes note of, but -- he really was just asking to ask. No ulterior motive behind it. He'd taken Byerly for a different sort of person, once, maybe a little too fresh from a clever little liar like Felix to want to make that same mistake again, but he's learned enough about him to conclude that there's a well-intentioned if not actually good person under there.

So he's curious. Might want to know him a little more, not just on a level of digging secrets out of him. That's kind of all it is. And he does, in actual fact, want to hear about Nadine. ]

Spy's not being useful unless they are somewhere with an axe over their head, unfortunately.

I don't envy what you had to do. [ A shrug. ] I was plenty miserable just trying to make nice enough with them to get by, let alone get anything useful out of them.