THE RIDE was tense, with my brothers looming at me in the dim carriage, waiting for enlightenment. Perhaps I did owe them an explanation, but I was not inclined to provide one, and I couldn’t find the words, and anyway, they should have been able to work it out. I wasn’t sure exactly when Mycroft had arrived, that night, with Sherrinford in tow, but I knew he had been there long enough to hear Father’s account of the day’s events and to argue strenuously on the subject. I had heard some of it, when the rain had slowed enough to let me distinguish words amid the shouting. And Sherlock had been there. He had witnessed all of it. He had seen me leave and had made no attempt to stop me, which told me he understood or at least suspected my reasoning.
I left because I could not stay.
But I had
