"He didn't argue," Grayson said.
She pulled back slightly to look at him. "Lucson didn't argue."
"He said he'd have the logistics ready by evening."
"That's — that's practically enthusiasm from Lucson."
"It's compliance," Grayson said. "But yes." Something in his expression shifted — not pride exactly, more like a man who had expected resistance and found that the resistance had been his own, and had set it down somewhere on a coastal cliff, and come back without it.
She looked at him in the morning light. He had the particular quality she had noticed on the train — the estate was back around him, the suit, the composure, the weight of the institution — but it sat differently. Like he was wearing it instead of being worn by it.
"The honey cake," she said.
"Yes," he said. "I was thinking—"
"Don't think. Kitchen. Now."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he took her hand — decisive, unhurried — and turned toward the house.
