“I thought you wanted him here.” Lillian yanked her hairbrush through a tangle with unnecessary vehemence. “What was that about?”

Jinadh sat on the edge of their bed and dug for his lighter in the nightstand. Though her parents had kept separate bedrooms, and there was space at Damesfort for them to do the same, Jinadh had leaned heavily in favor of one suite. She now suspected it had less to do with intimate reasons, and more with diplomatic; it forced them to resolve conflicts or go without sleep. Anyway, it was one less room to heat.

“I…” he picked at the duvet.

“You told me to bring him. You said you’d be happy to meet him. He’s my brother.” She bit down hard on another escalation, and forced herself to swallow it. It burned going down, like raw liquor, and stung her eyes the same. Whatever had torn out Cyril’s center and left that husk at the dining table, it wasn’t Jinadh’s fault.

“I know!” Jinadh stood again, leaving wrinkles in the bedclothes. He lit the straight crammed into the corner of his mouth and took a hasty, irritated drag. “But Lillian, he … there is something wrong. He needs … I do not know what he needs, but I do not think that we can help him. And I am not certain that I want him around Stephen.”

“I hardly think he’s dangerous,” she said, a seedling of doubt unfurling even as she spoke the words.

«How well do you know him?» asked Jinadh, shifting to Porashtu. He often did, when he had something hard to say. She was guilty of the same, in the opposite direction, and she’d been speaking less Porashtu in general since they came to Amberlough. «He’s been gone nearly a decade.»

Guilty, she met him on the playing field of his mother tongue. «He’s my brother,» she said again, less vehement this time. The doubt was creeping up her walls like ivy. If she didn’t strip it away, the mortar of her convictions would crumble. And if she couldn’t believe what she told herself, she wouldn’t know where to place her trust. Gathering her confidence, she went on more firmly: «He only needs time. Think how hard it was for us. And he has passed through so much more.»

Jinadh stopped in the center of the room, then sighed and came to sit beside her, settling amidst the ephemera of her vanity. She put her brush down and held a hand out for his cigarette.