The conversation happened at seven in the morning, which was the kind of time conversations happened when someone had been awake all night deciding to have them.
She was in the kitchen when he came in, not the purposeful arrival of the previous week but the early quiet arrival of someone who had chosen the earliest moment when they could find her alone. Mrs. Fenn did not come in until seven-thirty on Tuesdays. Luca was asleep until seven. Aria was at the table with her tea and the small private minutes before the day began.
Damien came in and sat down across from her.
She looked at him. He looked like a man who had slept three hours, which she was learning to distinguish from a man who had slept none, because she had now seen both. He set both hands flat on the table surface and looked
