"Alistair."
"Yes."
"The physician is going to have opinions about the clavicle."
"Yes."
"Strong ones."
"Yes."
"And you're going to agree with all of them."
Alistair met his eyes steadily. "I'm going to support the physician's recommendations," he said. "In a consistent and sustained way."
Tav held the look.
"I like you," he said, to the window.
"I know," Alistair said.
"I like you," Tav said again.
Lucien, in the front seat, maintained his very deliberate diplomatic inattention.
"The archive is public," Alistair said.
"Yes."
"Elias is named."
"Yes." He watched the window. "Seven across."
Alistair exhaled. "Yes," he said softly. "Seven across."
He thought: this is what it looks like when it's done.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The back seat of the car.
The city moved past the windows in its early-morning colors the amber of streetlamps, the occasional bright white of a business with lights still on, the moving headlights of the first delivery vehicles beginning their day. Tav was aware of all of this in the peripheral way of someone whose attention was substantially occupied by a different variable.
Alistair's hands. Maintaining the pressure that mattered. Steady without being rigid, the application of force that was care rather than fear.
Lucien was driving without commentary, which was the appropriate choice and which Tav noted with the distant part of his attention. Lucien had been very precisely not saying things that were
available for him to say for the last hour, which told Tav something about the kind of person he was and the care he had for his brother.
"You're watching me," Alistair said.
"Yes."
"What are you looking for?"
"Nothing. I'm looking."
Alistair's hands made a small adjustment. His right hand moved to hold Tav's, loosely, while his left maintained the wound pressure. A decision about what to prioritize.
