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Lazarus gasps. “Did he? I missed it.”

Edward reaches for his coffee. “No, you did not.”

“I did. Terrible tragedy. Could you do it again?” Lazarus taps Edward’s upper arm impatiently.

“No.” My brother shrugs his shoulder away from Lazarus, sneering at him and retreating to Olive’s side of the grand table.

“Perhaps if Olive threatens me with the knife once more.” Olive lifts the butter knife without looking at Laz.

Edward’s mouth twitches again and I lean back in my chair, satisfied.

“Remarkable,” I say.

Edward glares at me. “Do not make it strange.”

“My dear brother, it is us. Strange is the foundation,” I state with arms outstretched over my head.

Lazarus raises his glass of orange cordial. “To strange foundations.”

Olive eyes him. “Are you drinking cordial out of a wineglass?”

“It tastes better when it feels illegal.” Laz takes another swig and winks at her.

“That is not how taste works,” Edward says.

“It is how my taste works.” I should find him exhausting. I do. And I love it.

That is new.

Lazarus sits opposite me with one leg tucked beneath him, his hair loose, his shirt open at the throat. He has none of Edward’s restraint, none of Olive’s controlled precision, none of my carefully constructed elegance. He is a collection of contradictions pretending to be a man. Theatrical, foolish, observant. Aloof until he is not. Clumsy until someone threatens what he loves. Then, suddenly, horrifyingly lethal. I watch him steal another fig from Olive’s plate with a flourish of his fingers. She catches his wrist and he freezes from delight at being caught.

“Put it back,” she says.

“Darling Widow, surely we can negotiate.” He leans his face into hers, an entertaining sight.

“No.” She feigns glowering at him.

“A shared fig, perhaps?” He cocks an eyebrow and turns the fig in his grasp.

“No.”

“A symbolic fig representing unity among our damaged little assembly?” Laz still tries to bargain with her.

“Absolutely not.” She states matter-of-factly, but her lips have a small smile painted on them.

Edward covers his mouth with his hand. He is trying to hide his laughter, the warm ache in my chest returns and Lazarus notices too. His gaze flicks to Edward, then to me. For one suspended moment, his usual jesting falls away.

That may be the most dangerous thing about Lazarus Graves, not his sickle or his theatrical entrances. His danger is that he sees. He sees too much. The grief hiding under Edward’s restraint. The rage beneath Olive’s grace. The cracks beneath my polish and when his eyes meet mine across the table, I feel the peculiar sensation of being studied without being dissected. Intolerable. I look away.

“Alcott,” Lazarus says.

“No,” I bark at him.

“You do not know what I was going to say.” He reaches out a hand toward me and I smack it away.

“I sensed it would be irritating,” I chide.

“It was going to be complimentary.”