“Trust is a fickle thing, Harry.”

“It’s a bit like a child. At first, you’re supposed to hold it close to your chest, cherish it, and nurture it as it deserves. It can’t grow unless you feed it, and it can’t flourish unless you let it.”

“But sometimes for a child to really thrive, you need to let them suffer.”

“They have to be allowed out in the air to make decisions for themselves, to run around, fall down, scrape their knee.”

“Because if you don’t give them room to breathe? If you simply hold them close to your chest, babying them and fretting over their every move they’ll never have the room to grow.”

“They become dependent on you, attached to the idea that they’ll never be hurt.”

“That pain is something that doesn’t even exist.”

“And the moment a child brought up that way finally gets injured?”

“When the trust invested in you finally gets tested?”

“Everything goes red.”

“Their screams turn to wails, the trust turns to ash.”

“And all you’re left with are the pieces.”

“Pieces that never go back together the same way.”

“Pieces that embed themselves in your skin, a constant reminder of what once was.”

“I’m telling you all of this Harry because it’s something you need to hear. Something that until you learn it will haunt your life even more than the ghost you’ve become.”

“Michaela, Night… Me. I’ve watched you make the same mistake with every last relationship you’ve been handed.”

“Yet you still felt like you should preach to Night about what happens when that trust breaks.”

“Because you refuse to test that trust, you refuse to let your relationships strain and stress themselves. Just like a bone bending after fracturing, it’s the little disagreements, the hard truths, that strengthen it.”

“But you’re too focused on keeping your relationships pristine to see the harm you’re really doing.”

“You didn’t tell your own child about the life you lived and in the end she couldn’t trust you enough to go back to your side.”

“The Night knows something you kept hidden from him, and now he’s the shards of  distrust stabbed deep within your heart.”

“And me?”

“I’m the only person who’s trust you broke, who you betrayed, that found it in himself to give you another chance.”

“The child who realized you could make mistakes, who realized you tried your best.”

“I learned that you could be more, Harry.”

“Now you need to learn how to never let something like this happen again.”

“My knee had been scraped a million times over before you got to me, Harry. And at Olympus I’m doing more than scraping yours.”

“I want you to know, as I beat you down, it’s because I love you.”

“I’m straining our trust to its limit.”

“I’m going to hurt it just like I’ll hurt you.”

“But as you stare up at me, as you question how to rebuild?”

“I’m going to help you up.”

“And I’m going to show you how.”

“Law is nothing without second chances.”

“And I am the Law.”