ne's

that things are loud when

out saying anything, and I stand near the serving station with my hands clasped and my face arranged into the

ed her wrist wrong carrying a pot this afternoon and the girl covering for her is seventeen

prac

is sitting four seats down from Lucian and t

nd drift back to my position and try ve

entirely

e right moments, laughing when it is appropriate to laugh. He is good at this. He has always been good at this, the p

t performin

room to confirm it. He is speaking to the woman on his left, the composed one Reina mentioned, who I have since

ed at me since

notice things I am not

my hand moves before my brain does, catching the bottle, righting it, pressing a folded cloth to the

ten up Lucian

e spil

ng older than both, something that looks embarrassingly like pride, and I do not want it, I do not want to be

bond

mbnail into my

s at half

use she steadied herself and finished the service without another mistake. By the time the dining room is

ast of the table candl

k it i

not

e long empty table with all the extinguished candles between us, thin threads of smoke rising f

" I say, because someo

hould

finish

es, collar open now, and he looks tired in a way that the table full of g

onversation th

e. "I am not her

table and look at him properly

l the silence myself, which would have been a

body goes

question I am g

len

get to ask me that. You lost the right to that ques

ed discomfort of a man who has been mildly inconvenienced, but the

two people who

it," h

nto the room and

es and I think about three months of mornings, three months of his voice saying my name in that specif

I nearly press my ha

problem," I sa

w that

the door and he steps aside without being asked to and

not even sure he mea

g to ask to

p wal

, his voice very low. "Formally. Before the

doorway with

are ver

," I

g sil

w that. Even if it does not change anything. Even if you tell me it is too late." Another pause

in the

not a

corridor and I keep walki

inds my stern

been waiting three months for m