The careful edge of wanting something and refusing to reach for it.
“Verita,” he said.
“Ashford.”
Cosima’s mouth flattened.
“If the two of you perform titles at each other, I am leaving.”
“You invited him,” I said.
“I did.”
“That seems unlike you.”
“It is becoming a difficult morning for everyone.”
Caspian came to the table but did not sit until Cosima pointed at the chair opposite me.
He obeyed her.
That made something in her face go briefly, painfully soft.
Then it was gone.
“Cosima told me the question they mean to ask,” I said.
Caspian’s gaze dropped to the notebook.
“Stabilization through Caspian Ashford,” he said.
“You make it sound like medicine too.”
“I know.”
That stopped me.
He looked at his hands on the table. Flat. Still. The posture of a man considering his answer and a boy trying not to become one.
“If you accept me at the formal,” he said, “I need you to know what you would be accepting.”
“An honor, presumably.”
His mouth tightened.
“Protection. Position. My family’s name in rooms where yours would be easier to erase.”
“That sounds almost useful.”
“It is useful.”
“That is not the same as good.”
“No.”
Cosima closed her eyes for a second.
“It would also be a refusal,” she said.
