“It may revive the dead.”
Her face changes.
I realise what I have said a second too late.
“Pippa—”
“It’sfine.”
“No, that was—”
“It’s fine,” she says again, and this time she looks at me. “I know what you meant.”
Still, I feel like an idiot.
A tired idiot with a borrowed jacket and tea that could strip paint.
“I’m sorry.”
“I gathered.”
She bumps my arm with hers.
Lightly.
It is the smallest possible contact.
It still rearranges my entire nervous system.
“Stop looking like I’m going to throw you into a hedge,” she says.
“Would you?”
“Depends how the night goes.”
“Fair.”
Her eyes narrow.
“What?”
“You say that when you’re trying not to argue.”
“I say it because I’m reasonable.”
“No, you say it because you’re storing up a point for later.”
I stare at her. “That is disturbingly accurate.”
“I observe too.”
“Yes, but when you do it, it feels threatening.”
“Good.”
There is the banter.
There is the easy edge of it.
