Aestrith's hand still rested on his shoulder when he answered.
"Nothing in it to draw."
Beorn never looked up from the ledger.
The answer was technically true. She recognized it immediately. Whenever he wanted to avoid a subject without actually lying, he found the narrowest truth he could stand on and stayed there.
Most nights she would have pushed back. She knew exactly how to answer a dodge like that, how to force him to choose between speaking plainly or refusing outright.
Tonight, nothing came.
The silence lingered, and neither of them tried to break it.
He closed the ledger with care. He always handled ordinary things that way, as though precision itself gave his hands a purpose.
Next he folded the map again, corner over corner until it was neater than before.
Then he picked up the quill and adjusted it in its stand until it sat perfectly straight, exactly as it always did.
Only after every small task was finished did he let his hands come to rest.
