They both sat upon the green, swaying grass. Unseen bugs were almost certainly making a highway of their legs as they lingered in that heavy silence, but neither of them moved.
Basil realized he had been entirely wrong in his approach. Fishing for words from a locked chest was useless if you didn't have the key. What he needed to dangle before her was not a question, but an interest. And in her small, hollowed-out world, there was only a single thing that commanded her absolute attention, as it stood.
Her father.
