Nor could he even begin to understand how he felt at the sight, coming out of the washroom, of Ginny nestled up next to Aurelie. Morandi knew that it hurt in a way that made him feel weak and wanting at once; that was all he knew. That it reminded him of something he had wanted very badly once, and had given up so long ago that it seemed almost cruel to feel it again now.
Nor Peter’s cautious approach – cautious even without him present – which seemed horribly wrong, as wrong as the thought of Aurelie in the midst of the spell circles. Wrong, and yet reasonable, some cool part of his mind told him. Reasonable in the way everything else was unreasonable – reasonable in the way he seemed to have become unreasonable, illogical, himself.
Nor his stumbling question, and the wince across Aurelie’s face.
What he felt then was very unpleasant. It made him grit his jaw hard, and it was difficult to hold his field indectal. More so when she replied, simple and soft and honest; and then –
Peter looked at him, his eyes widening slightly. He looked sharply away. Morandi’s eyes moved to Aurelie, who had broken off at the mention of his name; her hands were folded in front of her, fingers tightly interlaced, head down so that he could see little of her eyes underneath her fringe. Her shoulders were not straight.
It was a different sort of image. He had felt briefly, strangely, as if this were something they were facing together. Now, it felt to him as if all the weight were on her shoulders. The scars stood out strongly on her paled knuckles.
“What hurts?” asked Ginny, frowning up at Peter and then Aurelie.
“Don’t worry, Ginny,” Peter said. He had been scratching behind Shadow’s ears, but his hand came away then.
“What hurts?”
Both children jumped and looked over when Morandi’s field brushed over them. It was no less tight at the edges, but it was no longer shifted or flexed; it was simply tense and heavy, strong and rigidly-organized. As if Ginny had forgotten earlier, she shrank back slightly. Peter’s jaw was squared, and he did not move.
Morandi crouched with his armful of towels, passing one to Aurelie silently. Peter was staring at him; he looked up, met Peter’s eye for a moment – before Peter looked away from his eyes, stubborn.
He extended a handtowel, smudged a little at the edge by Shadow’s nose earlier. Peter did not take it; he muttered, “I’m not frightened.” He was slightly pale.
Morandi blinked, remembering the tears streaming down his cheeks, the distinct feeling of thorns piercing his eyes. “I was afraid, as one is of many things,” he admitted, even harsher with the difficulty of the admission. “I am no longer.” He threw a towel over Shadow, beginning to dry his thick fur. “There was pain, and then we recovered.” He looked up once and met Aurelie’s eye. “There are other things which are much more frightening.”
He thought of the magister's silhouette in the doorway, and of the steamship bound for Brunnhold. He thought of locking the handcuffs around a strange woman's wrists thoughtlessly. It had taken so long once he knew, even; he might have willingly given her up. He thought of asking questions that nobody would answer as a boy, and of an empty space that everyone had begun simply to ignore.
Peter looked down at Shadow, frowning. “We won’t tell,” he said after a long time. “Ginny, I know you’ll want to tell mum all about the puppy, but you won’t tell, will you?”
“But –”
“Ginny,” plead Peter.
“I won’t,” mumbled Ginny.