Samas advocates for Evan and mentors him

The relationship between Evan Michaels and Samas develops from an offer of candid conversation into a formal advocacy bond during Evan’s Ascension. Samas’s value to Evan lies in both his knowledge of the process and his willingness to speak plainly: he explains how an advocate can be changed, agrees to take Poppy’s place, and later identifies a vulnerability in Evan’s evidence while suggesting how he might address it. Their alliance offers Evan guidance, but not exemption from responsibility or uncertainty.

A candid presence during Ascension

Evan turns to Samas while feeling shut out of the process. Ramsay had told him that she could not have contact with him once the Ascension began, and her role on the panel also prevented her from discussing certain matters beforehand. Poppy, meanwhile, had managed Evan’s advocacy while keeping him ignorant of what would happen next. Evan could speak with Mr. Diltz, but he wanted a fuller account of the process from someone he could question openly.

Samas distinguishes himself from those official constraints. He explains that he has no role in the Ascension and is present only as a spectator, having come because he wanted to meet Evan. Each newly found and confirmed member, he says, feels like a new family member; witnessing such a rare occasion is a joy. He offers himself as Evan’s kindred spirit, available to answer questions without keeping secrets from him. That promise directly answers Evan’s complaint: Samas makes openness, rather than controlled disclosure, the basis of their relationship.

Evan admits that he has a lifetime’s worth of questions, then singles out his foremost concern: he has only a general idea of what he is supposed to do during the Ascension. Samas thinks Evan is doing well, but Evan clarifies that the problem is not his willingness to talk about himself. He enjoys telling his life stories because it is the first time he has been able to tell them to anyone but himself. What unsettles him is not knowing what comes next. Samas’s role is therefore partly reassuring, but also attentive to the difference between Evan’s confidence in recounting his past and his anxiety about the process around him.

Becoming Evan’s advocate

The conversation moves from uncertainty to agency when Evan asks how a candidate can change advocates. Samas first recognizes that Evan may be angry with Poppy; Evan cannot yet say exactly what he feels. He insists that succeeding matters more to him than protecting her feelings. Samas explains the available routes: Evan can ask the panel to select another advocate, or choose one himself, subject to the panel’s acceptance.

Evan asks Samas directly to become his advocate, and Samas agrees after a moment’s thought. He sets one condition: he will not tell Poppy that the arrangement has changed; Evan must take responsibility for that conversation. The agreement is thus both an act of support and a boundary. Samas will stand beside Evan in the review, but he will not manage the personal consequences of Evan’s choice for him.

Evan shakes Samas’s hand and almost immediately begins to question his decision. He recognizes that Samas was right about the Ascension going well, and that the success to that point was partly due to Poppy’s work as well as his own. Yet Evan has learned to fear surprises because they have often affected him for the worse, and he dislikes being kept in the dark. On the ride home, his feelings toward Poppy remain contradictory: he wants her and despises her, loves what she is and hates who she is. Samas’s acceptance changes the advocacy arrangement, but it does not resolve the attachment and resentment that made Evan seek the change.

Counsel on the case

Samas’s guidance extends beyond procedure. When discussing Evan’s Ascension, he warns that the case may present a problem: Evan has information from only two lifetimes, or one and a half in Samas’s estimation. Evidence from Evan’s first incarnation lies in Bulgaria, where surviving records may be difficult to obtain. The second presents a different difficulty. In the United States, records are more likely to have survived and to have been available to Evan beforehand, making that information suspect in the panel’s eyes.

Samas frames this analysis as devil’s advocacy informed by experience: he has sat on the panel and knows how its members might think. Rather than merely point out the weakness, he recommends that Evan offer something the panel cannot refute: his emotions, specifically how he feels about living this life. The argument is practical as well as personal. If the panel cannot dispute those feelings, it must accept them, and Samas believes that accepting them could affect how it regards Evan. Evan considers the advice while looking at the valuable art on the walls; the proposal makes sense to him and also reveals how much he still has to learn about presenting his case.

Support without control

Samas’s relationship with Evan is marked by a contrast between reassurance and challenge. He offers warmth through the language of kinship and tells Evan he can ask him anything, but he also requires Evan to own the decision to replace Poppy and to tell her himself. As an adviser, he does not simply affirm Evan’s account: he explains why parts of it may appear vulnerable to the panel, then helps him find a less easily disputed way to make his case.

That balance continues when Samas later asks whether Evan has thought about when to proceed with their plan. Evan has made no commitment, and Samas’s assumption that the plan is already moving toward a date irritates him. He says he will not think about it until he is allowed to see what lies beyond the curtain. Samas responds that he does not mean to pressure him, describing the question as curiosity. The exchange shows that their alliance does not erase Evan’s guardedness or give Samas authority over his choices. Samas can offer a plan and guidance; Evan retains the right to withhold agreement until he knows more. Their bond is consequently that of advocate and mentor, but one shaped by Evan’s insistence on informed choice as much as by Samas’s willingness to help.