We paid the bill and walked out into the cold and Adrian said: “Margaret asked again.”
I had been expecting this. Margaret had asked twice since our conversation in her sitting
room, both times through the same channel, a handwritten note delivered through the
Blackwood building’s courier, both times phrased with the same careful restraint. She was
not pushing. She was asking. Which from Margaret was its own kind of change.
“Ethan’s ready,” I said.
Adrian looked at me. “You asked him?”
“Last week,” I said. “I told him the full context, who she is, what she did, what she’s been
doing since. All of it, age-appropriate but honest. He asked three questions, two of which
were about the structural specifications of the Blackwood estate and one of which was
about whether she was actuall
