Chapter 227: Welcome Banquet

Chapter 227: Chapter 227: Welcome Banquet

Mary knocked on the door of the 23rd-floor apartment herself, and Erik stood one pace behind her with his hands clasped, like a man escorting a queen.

"You don’t need to carry that," she told him, without turning. She held a covered dish in both hands. "Let them see an ordinary woman with a plate."

"You’re not ordinary, Mom."

"Hush."

The door opened on its chain. Alex’s eye appeared in the gap, then his whole face as the chain came off, and then he stopped moving entirely. He looked at Mary, and something crossed his features that Erik could only describe as a man doing arithmetic and not liking the answer. The woman Alex remembered had been nearly fifty, with silver in her hair and lines around her eyes from laughing at breakfast tables. The woman in front of him looked about thirty-two.

His mouth opened.

Mary raised one eyebrow. It was the exact eyebrow she had used on a seventeen-year-old caught eating the last of the biscuits.

Alex closed his mouth.

"Aunt Mary," he said, very quietly.

"Hello, my boy."

He did not remember crossing the threshold. Erik watched him bend nearly in half to be held, and watched Mary, who was a head shorter, wrap both arms around his shoulders and rock him the way she had rocked Erik after bad exams. Alex made a sound into her shoulder that was not quite a word.

"You’re thin," she said into his hair. "Too thin. Who’s been feeding you?"

"I was feeding the wall."

"Then the wall can feed itself from now on." She drew back and cupped his face. Her eyes were wet, and she did not hide it. "I’ve thought of you every day. Erik told me the day he found you, and I have not been able to sit still since."

"You look..." Alex began.

"Rested," Mary said. "We sleep very well up there. Now. Is that your wife?"

It was a masterful change of subject, and Erik was grateful for it. Michelle had come to the door with a hand on her stomach, and Mary went to her as though the pregnancy were the only news in the world. She asked how far along, and whether the baby kicked at night, and whether Michelle had been eating enough. Michelle answered each question a little more warmly than the last. Valerie hovered behind her sister-in-law with the watchful courtesy of a woman who has been fooled before. Danielle stood at the back with her arms crossed, looking at Mary’s dish.

"Tonight," Mary said, finally, to all of them, "you will come up to my apartment for dinner. Seven o’clock, by the clocks that still work. It’s a welcome, and I won’t hear that you’re too tired."

"We couldn’t," Alex began.

"Alex."

"Aunt Mary, we’ve already taken so much."

"You’ve taken a floor and a bed," she said. "Dinner is not a favor. It’s a debt I owe you, for keeping my sons’ friend alive. Say yes."

Alex looked at Michelle. Michelle looked at Valerie. Valerie, after a long beat, gave the smallest of nods.

"Yes," Alex said. "Thank you."

"Good. Erik will fetch you." She patted his cheek and turned to leave, then paused and held out the dish. "That’s for the girl with the rabbits. It’s still warm."

Danielle took it, suspicious, and lifted the cloth. Under it lay four golden biscuits.

She looked up, and for a second the guard slipped.

"Thank you," she said.

At seven, the long table in the penthouse of 2501 had been extended with two folding leaves, and still it barely fit.

Erik had never seen so many candles in that apartment. They stood in saucers along the table, a gold river of small flames, with two battery lanterns turned low at either end. The food had come from the kitchen in waves since four o’clock, and Aunt Lucy and Mary had not let anyone else touch it. There was a roast with crackled skin, glazed with something dark and sweet. There was saffron rice studded with raisins and almonds, bowls of braised greens, flat loaves still steaming, honey butter, a platter of preserved peaches, and, at the very center, a tower of biscuits.

When the Vales came in, Danielle stopped dead in the doorway.

"Where," she said, "did all this come from?"

"Danielle," Alex murmured.

"No, it’s fair." Mary stood at the head of the table with her hands folded. "We prepared. Erik warned your brother, and he warned us harder than he warned anyone. We bought what we could before the sleep, and we’ve been careful with it. Tonight, we are not careful."

Danielle studied her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she looked at the table, the candles, the faces. Something in her shoulders came down.

"Okay," she said.

Introductions went around the table. Silver rose to greet them, tall and silver-haired, in a dark jacket that was somehow perfectly pressed. "Penelope’s uncle," he said, with a slight bow. "You are welcome at our table." Alex shook his hand and looked, for just a moment, like a man who had met a lion and been told it was a house cat. Dahlia and Victor were introduced simply by name. Persephone grinned and shook Michelle’s hand with both of hers. Aunt Lucy said, "Ben’s mother," and pressed a spoon into Michelle’s palm. "Eat. Don’t argue."

"Remington," Alex said slowly, as Killian offered his hand. "Of Remington Enterprises?"

"Yes."

"I handled your paperwork once. For a merger. I never met you."

"I remember the paperwork," Killian said gravely. "It was very clean."

Alex laughed, startled, and the table loosened.

Then everyone sat, and the real show began.

Penelope had taken her usual chair halfway down the table, between Mary and an empty seat. She had not planned anything. Killian, coming in behind her with a platter, set it down and took the empty seat at her elbow as naturally as breathing. He did not look at the chair. He did not look at her. He simply sat there, and reached for the water jug, and filled her glass first.

Nobody said a word.

Kai studied the ceiling very carefully. Persephone became extremely interested in the butter dish, her shoulders shaking once. Silver’s face did not change, but his eyes moved, once, from Killian to Penelope and back, with the satisfaction of a man observing a long game that was going well. Mary glanced at her daughter, and her smile was a quiet, private thing. Even Erik, who had trained himself out of such reactions, felt the corner of his mouth tug.

Penelope, who was not oblivious, kept her eyes on her glass. The tips of her ears were pink.

"Thank you," she said, to the water.

"Of course," said Killian.

Down the table, Danielle leaned toward her sister and muttered, not quietly enough, "They’re together. Right? He poured her water."

"Danielle."

"I’m just saying."

Michelle caught Alex’s eye across the candles and raised her eyebrows. Alex, who had known Penelope as nothing more than Erik’s sister, gave the smallest shrug. Boyfriend, his expression said. Obviously. And he turned back to his plate, content with the world’s arrangement.

The meal went on for a long time. People passed bowls and argued over the last peach. Alex ate slowly at first, as though the food might vanish, and then faster, and Mary watched him with such open happiness that Erik had to look away.

Down the table, Victor had not said ten words since the soup. He sat beside Dahlia with his chair a little too close to hers, his fork moving mechanically, and his attention fixed on her with the single-mindedness of a man who had no interest in anyone else in the room. Under the tablecloth, his hand had settled on her thigh and was tracing slow, idle circles. Dahlia, who had presided over syndicate meetings without blinking, kept her face perfectly serene. She cut a piece of roast, ate it, and without looking down laced her fingers through his to still them. He turned his hand over and held on.

Silver, at the far end, watched his daughter’s composed profile and his son-in-law’s bland, contented one, and slowly reached for his wine. He did not say a word. His eyebrow said several.

"You never call me sir anymore," Erik said, across the table.

"You never ask me to schedule a meeting." Alex grinned. "Mr. Ryker."

"Don’t."

"Mr. Ryker, your three o’clock is here."

"I will end you."

"With what? Spreadsheets?"

Kai nearly choked on a mouthful of rice. "Oh my God, I’ve missed this. Alex, do you remember the fountain?"

"Don’t," said Alex.

"Tell them about the fountain."

"I will not."

"He got the call at two in the morning," Kai told the table, delighted. "I was a sophomore. There was a dare, and a fountain, and I may have lost a shoe. Everyone else ran. I called the one person I knew would pick up."

"Because I was responsible," Alex said. "I was twenty-three and Erik’s assistant. I had a presentation at nine."

"You came anyway."

"You were sitting in four inches of water, singing."

Persephone put down her fork. "Four inches?"

"It was a dare."

"Please. I held a study group once that was three hundred people. It had a DJ." She tilted her chin. "My library banned me for a semester."

"For a study group?"

"For the fog machine."

Kai stared at her. "Wait. Which campus?"

She named it, with a small, smug smile.

"Oh, that one," Kai said. "The one with the ivy and the tuition. We used to drive past and wave."

"You went to the one with the fountain, didn’t you? The one where everyone wore a white shirt and thought they were in a magazine."

"I did not pose."

"I didn’t say you posed. I said everyone there did."

"Alex, tell her I didn’t pose."

"He posed," said Alex, and the table erupted. Even Valerie was smiling.

"Fine," Kai said, pointing his fork at Persephone. "Next time our schools play each other, I’m bringing my own fog machine."

"You wouldn’t last a night at mine."

"Want to bet?"

"I want to see you try."

It was then, in a lull, that Erik noticed Ben.

Ben had been sitting two seats down from Valerie all evening, saying almost nothing. He had met her briefly at the gate, in lantern gloom, with a blanket in his arms and Michelle to attend to. He had not really seen her. Now, in the warm candlelight, with her dark hair tucked behind one ear and a small, tired, genuine smile on her face, he had gone quiet in a way Erik recognized.

He was looking at her like a man hit by a truck.

He knocked over his water glass.

"Sorry," Ben said. "Sorry. I..."

"It’s fine." Valerie caught the glass before it rolled. She was already dabbing the cloth. "You’ve got a drip on your sleeve."

"I do. That’s... yes."

"Are you all right?"

"I’m great." He cleared his throat. "Hi. I’m Ben."

"I know. You gave my sister-in-law a blanket."

"That’s me." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I wanted to ask. Do you have hobbies? Before. I mean. Things you like to do."

Valerie considered the question with a seriousness that visibly undid him. "Horses," she said. "I used to ride. And I draw animals. Skeletons, mostly. It sounds morbid, but it helps me learn the anatomy. I was in vet school, third year. I was supposed to start clinicals in September."

"A vet." Ben said it like a prayer. "That’s amazing. I garden. My mom does most of it, but I help. She grows everything. We had a plan to start a little..."

"Farm?"

"Something like that."

"I’d like that," she said. "I’d like to see what you grow."

Ben did not breathe for a moment.

Across the table, Kai caught Persephone’s eye, and she mouthed, with exquisite slowness, he’s gone. Kai pressed his lips together to stop his laugh. Aunt Lucy, at the far end, set down her spoon and looked at her son with an expression of pure maternal amazement. Hrimnir, who had settled under the table with his chin on Valerie’s foot, rolled one eye up at Ben and, as far as Erik could tell, sighed.

Danielle, meanwhile, had a third biscuit in her hand and was laughing into her napkin at something Kai had said. She laughed again, surprised at herself, and her hand went to her pocket by reflex, reaching for something. Nothing was there. She had left the kitchen knife behind on the 23rd floor, on the windowsill beside the rabbits, and had not noticed until now. She looked at her empty pocket for a moment, and then she picked up another biscuit.

Erik found Alex on the terrace afterward.

The rain had thinned to a fine cold mist. Below them the building lay dark and silent, hundreds of rooms without a single light. Alex stood at the rail with his hands braced on it, his shoulders curved forward, and the candlelight from the glass door fell across his back.

"She’s the same," Alex said, without turning. "Aunt Mary. Different. Younger. But the same."

"She is."

"I won’t ask. I know you can’t say. I just wanted to say it out loud."

"Thank you."

A long silence. A drip fell from the awning and struck the stone.

"My parents are in the village," Alex said, at last. His voice was level. "Two hours out of the city, before the water. They’d have heard. They’d have come. My father would have walked through fire. He once drove six hours in a snowstorm because I forgot my keys."

Erik said nothing.

"It’s been weeks." Alex’s knuckles whitened on the rail. "They haven’t come. They haven’t sent anyone. They’d have found a way, Erik. They would have crawled." He swallowed. "So I think I’ve known since the second week. I just didn’t say it. If I didn’t say it, it wasn’t..."

His voice broke on the last word.

Erik did not say I’m sorry. He did not say you don’t know that. He stood beside his oldest friend at the edge of the dark, and after a moment he reached out and laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder. He did not squeeze. He simply left it there, the way you rest a hand on something that might otherwise fall.

Alex’s head bowed. His breath shook.

"Thank you," he said, after a long time. "For not telling me it’ll be okay."

"I won’t lie to you."

"I know. That’s why I trust you."

They stayed there a while. Inside, someone laughed, and Penelope’s voice rose in a protest, and Kai said something that made Michelle gasp. The candlelight spilled gold over the wet stone. Alex wiped his face with his sleeve, straightened, and let out a breath that seemed to come from somewhere very deep.

"Biscuits," he said.

"What?"

"Your mother made biscuits." He looked at Erik, red-eyed, with the ghost of a grin. "I’m going to eat all of them."

Erik smiled. "Go."

Alex went. Erik stayed a moment longer at the rail with the mist on his face and Hrimnir leaning against his leg, listening to a warm, loud house at his back. For the first time in weeks, the building below him was only a dark shape in the rain, and not a weight on his chest.

Then he went inside.