Then the hour struck and the sound of the clock made him start. He closed his mouth so sharply she could hear his teeth.

“Time for coffee and liqueurs, I think,” she said too loudly, and the moment was lost in the scraping of chairs.

Cyril wasn’t trying to conceive a child or ensure good fortune for the rest of the year, or even make sure the sun rose the morning after the longest night. He simply couldn’t sleep.

He kept hearing the faint shift of Ari’s vowels, moving to the front of his mouth. Wondering why he’d parted with so many hoarded gems of information so swiftly, just because Lillian pressed him. Kept seeing the soft opening of his lips as if he really meant to sing.

It had been cruel; he’d known even as he said it that it would destroy the fragile idyll his sister had managed to tweeze from this thorny imitation of festivities. But he’d watched Aristide lay down facts about his childhood deliberately as coins on a counter, at Lillian’s slightest suggestion, and something about it slid under his skin like splinters.

Back then, all he’d ever gotten for his troubles with Aristide was a smile. But how much trouble had he really taken? They had kept any confessions they might have made hidden behind their respective roles.

None of it really excused ruining dinner. But dinner didn’t mean much to him besides another chance to eat he might not have again. His stomach ached, though he could hardly remember the taste of anything he’d put into his mouth. How long would it take to stop thinking of food this way?

To occupy the time until dawn, he made himself a mission: to open every door in the house, and assess how much of it was being used. Excluding the master bedroom, in which he could hear the sounds of Solstice being celebrated. He found Stephen’s room by accident; the boy was soundly asleep, sloppily spread across his pillows. He’d have his first hangover tomorrow. After that it was empty room after empty room, all dusty as the one that looked into Aristide’s windows. Which were lit, barely. No movement. And no sound, when Cyril crept down the hall and around the corner to put his ear against the door.

This was the one he’d meant to open all along. The knob turned, when he tried it.

Wrapped in a rug and a dressing gown Aristide reclined in an armchair, head raised from the book in his hands to watch the door open. The room was lit only by the lamp beside him and the glow of embers. His spectacles caught the light and shone it into Cyril’s face, obscuring his eyes.

“You might have knocked,” he said.

Cyril shut the door behind him but kept his back against it.