“Which means that’s only an excuse.” She stepped closer to him as they walked so that their arms brushed with every movement. She wasn’t wearing gloves—never did, aside from the night of the dinner party. He found he liked the feeling of her fingers against his. “The real question, I think, is why you’ve never tried to work past that with him.”

“I have.” Hadn’t he? Surely so, at some point. Or another. Over the years. When they were children, perhaps, or . . . since.

“Really? You’ve worked your elbow-magic on him, as Mabena calls it? And it’s failed?” Somehow a shade of amusement colored her tone. Amusement, after all this.

He opened his mouth. But had to shut it again. Of course he’d never taken Casek Wearne’s elbow, nor invited him to open his heart to him. “If I tried it, he’d sock me in the nose.”

“That may be. But I think Mabena’s wrong.” She settled her hand on his arm too. Two connections, which were somehow more than twice as effective at making him aware of her every shift. “The elbow has nothing to do with it. It’s you that sees people, Oliver. Sees them truly, sees them clearly. Sees them with purpose—and that purpose is to care.”

He glanced at her face briefly, then back to the path. “I suppose he resists me more than most.”

“I don’t think that’s it at all.” She squeezed his arm, then let her fingers drift away again. “I think it’s that you don’t want to see him. So you’ve never really tried.”

He winced. Wanted to deny it. But he knew truth when it pierced his soul. “I don’t know how to want to. Not with him.” Those words would probably make her respect him less, think him petty.

Or make her chuckle. “I think you’d better sort through that. Because he’s clearly in love with your cousin, and I think she’s leaning that direction too.”

“No! He’ll only hurt her.” The objection emerged from reflex more than thought.

But she angled her face toward his, brow arched, called him on it. “Someone already did, Oliver—but it wasn’t him. Not two years ago and not tonight.”

He huffed out a breath. “I know.” He let silence walk with them for a few paces and then said, “He’s always had eyes only for Mabena. But everyone thought Cador the wiser choice, if she liked that particular face.”

She snorted a laugh, no doubt at the thought of twins being interchangeable. She would know, better than most, how nature only provided so much of who a person was. “She said Cador kept her grounded, and that’s what everyone said she needed.” She squeezed his fingers, and he knew well it was a warning. “But she said that Casek made her fly.”