It isn't often that he feels as though time has gotten away from him. The end of last month and the beginning of this one have proven an exception to that rule, and also unusually, it has taken him some time to recover from recent events sufficiently to want to talk in depth about much of anything at all beyond the business.

About an hour before torpor he proposes they ready themselves for bed, and dressed in his sleeping robe, he pats the space beside him. "I feel as though we have a few things to discuss," he offers. "And as though I owe you an apology for the delay on one of them, but it wasn't my decision to make."