Cassian stood.
"Stay," he said. "I will be a moment."
Chester lifted his cup. "I am not a child, Captain."
Cassian's look said otherwise. Then he cut through the smoke toward the back.
The yard behind the tavern smelled of piss and wet wood. He took his time. He told himself it was only wine. He told himself the tightness in his chest was the hide, not the man at the table.
When he came back, the lamp in the corner had found a new shape.
A woman sat in Chester's lap.
Red mouth. Bare shoulder. She had Chester's cup at her lips and was drinking from it as if the wine had always been hers. Chester's hands were not on her. They rested on the arms of the chair, polite, useless. He did not push her off. He did not laugh. He simply allowed it.
Cassian stopped two paces short.
Something ugly and clean went through him. He would not name it. Naming it would make it his.
He crossed the last distance with a captain's courtesy.
