It took Stephen a moment to parse the Porashtu, but when he’d got it he rolled his eyes. “Dad.”

“Hello, Steenie,” Lillian said.

Stephen’s slouch straightened, and his attitude lost its insouciance if not its hostility. He took the steps with gravity exaggerated to the point of satire, and came nose to nose with her, or nearly. When had he gotten so tall?

“Mother,” he said, suddenly ten years older. How did he do that, the swift shift from little boy to man, and back again? He sat on such a thin edge between the two, and it always cut her when she came too close. She could never tell, either, which side he was likely to come down on.

Jinadh glanced between them, frowning, then made a foray into the stiff silence, pushing Stephen gently over the threshold and into the hall. «Lunch is nearly ready. Go wash up and change. Bern laid out some dhoti; they’ll cover your ankles at least. Do they put you on the rack at that school when you misbehave?» He thwacked Stephen’s rear with his newspaper.

«Dad!» Stephen aimed an affronted glare over his shoulder and muttered a foul curse under his breath.

“What was that?” Lillian asked. Echoing back sharply from the marble floor of the hall, her own voice sounded eerily like her mother’s. A wave of emotional vertigo hit her—that she should stand here admonishing her own child, as her mother had admonished …

Cyril. She clenched her teeth against panic.

Stephen didn’t notice. “Nothing,” he said, shoving the word out between his teeth. “Queen’s sake.”

«Lunch,» said Jinadh, propelling Stephen farther into the front hall. Then, more quietly, for her: «Lillian, don’t. He’s just gotten home.»

A reflexive retort coiled in her chest to strike: Did he want his child to speak that way? She swallowed it in the interest of maintaining a détente. Before she could summon something less acidic, the telephone bell shrilled.

“Ma’am,” said Magnusson, appearing from the vestibule, “It’s for you.”

“It’s a radio call, ma’am.” Magnusson held the telephone in front of him as though it were a precious artifact. “From Aristide Makricosta. It took him quite a while to get through. Should I accept?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said, hearing the words from a long way away. “I’ll … I’ll take it in my office.”

“Shall I fetch Bern for you, or would you like me to take notes?” Magnusson had done double duty as her secretary in Asu, some days: a duty which now occasionally fell to Bern. Someday she’d have the money to hire a real right hand. She hoped.

“No,” she said, “that’s all right.”

Magnusson nodded and spoke quietly to the operator; his voice faded as Lillian went up the stairs, feeling each variation in the grain of the bannister in exquisite detail while her mind avoided more important things.