“Why, Femme Kendrick, I had no idea you would be joining us this evening. You grace us with your incomparable presence. You must stay for dinner, of course. The children will be so glad to know you will.”

As the man, a few years my father’s senior, led me up the stairs with my hand clutched in his arm, I looked back to Sam, hoping he might rescue me from this unforeseen fate. Someone like Latimer was incapable of noticing that I did not want to dine with his family.

Clearly, Sam was forlorn. After all, he was the one who invited me to the Tower estate. He hurried up the stairs after us with that look on his face that said he was concocting a plan—hopefully an escape, and a timely one.

Inside the doors, pyres moved about. One might say they bustled, but if they looked closely enough, they would have seen that pyres never really rushed. They only ever moved very quickly or very slowly, but it was always with the same presence, as if they floated through the air rather than simply moving from place to place.

“You,” Latimer said to a pyre who could not have been older than me. “Take the Femme’s coat. Quickly now.”

I did not need a pyre to take my coat. My fingers were very skilled at simple tasks like releasing clasps and handling cloth. So I stepped aside with the intention of doing it myself.

“Oh dear,” Latimer said. When he was displeased, the growing bald patch atop his head wrinkled, and he sort of shook his face so his jowls jostled. “Aurelie, you must accept our hospitality. You are a guest in the Tower residence.”

But I certainly would not accept a pyre assisting me against his or her will. Perhaps I could not accept such a thing.

Sam put a hand on my shoulder, and then he quickly took my coat and handed it to the pyre himself.

“It’s alright,” he assured me, placing a hand on my back and rubbing ever so slightly, as if to comfort me.

It was only barely alright. But it was already done. And Sam, as usual, meant well.

“Braun Tower,” Sam said, bowing as a way to gain some basic acknowledgment of his existence from the man. “Thank you for the invitation for dinner, but we are only here to collect a few books from the library, as you discussed with my mother.”

“Ah yes, I remember. And you thought to bring the winsome Aurelie along. How fortuitous for us.”

“Indeed.” But Sam was no longer acting like it was fortuitous that I was present.

Episode 4: A Measuring Of Members Between Rivals

“If that is the case, I will inform the children that you are present, and they shall accompany you in the library.”