The entire time
CASPIAN Marcus says something funny at half past nine. This is not unusual — Marcus has always been funny. It is one of his most consistent qualities, and I have been the audience for it for longer than most of the pack has been alive. What is unusual is what happens in my chest before I can stop it — a laugh, short and surprised and rough with disuse, escaping before I’ve decided to let it out. Marcus goes very still. Then he looks at me with an expression of such pure unguarded delight that I immediately regret it. “Don’t,” I say. “I didn’t say anything,” he says. “Your face said something.” “My face,” he says, arranging it into an expression of elaborate neutrality that fools absolutely no one, “is completely neutral.” I look at him. He looks back. The neutrality holds for appro
- Writer
