Sometimes his nose wiggled like a rabbit’s when he ate.

No scathing ripostes? No turn-arounds to remind him that, by the way, everything he did was wrong and he treated his poor dear sister like a maid by … hiring her a maid they couldn’t even consistently afford? No demanding truth while feeding him a lifelong diet of lies and half-truths?

He wanted to be touched by that. He wanted to want to forgive her. He wanted to forget what that fellow felt like under his foot.

But he couldn’t.

He picked up the knife and brought it to wash at the sink, one brief exasperated raise of the brows when she brought up his ‘trip’ again. He would have to spend a day or two somewhere else to cover for this. Oh, lovely. Was she going to tell him something she didn’t want him alive knowing now?

Aslan stared, water running over the knife. No. She was going to tell him something he didn’t want to be alive knowing. Had she--…

Did he even blame her for not wanting their mother’s fate? Allah, no. It didn’t even occur to him that she might not have orchestrated that. Stair incident … and what business did their father-in-law have telling her what she could tell her own family?

“I don’t think that’s his decision to make, Nisa.”

He turned the blade in the sink. It was clean, but it felt right in his left hand.

“Your husband never liked me,” he shrugged. “When we talked, it was me asking about you and him asking what my plans were for the rest of the day.”

Subtle one, that.

Ah, tea cups. Was it poisoning time, then? He didn’t have the energy to care. To keep running. To pretend there was any such thing as a moment that wasn’t now. Aslan chewed his words, mouth moving in a slightly lapine manner.

“Did you want a child?” he finally asked.

Of course she didn’t. It made no sense to wonder if she did.