And for the first time since she had come through the garden gate the controlled surface shifted — just slightly, just briefly. Not breaking. Just becoming honest in the way that controlled people become honest when they are in a room with people they have decided to trust.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I sat with my father after Nolan left and we didn’t say much. We just —” She paused. “My father made tea and we sat at the kitchen table and he told me he had always suspected but had never been able to trace it and had decided, at some point, that some gifts you simply receive and don’t interrogate.” She looked at her hands. “He said my mother would have done the same for them if the situations were reversed. That it was simply what their friendship was.”
“It was,” Sebastian said quietl
