It sounded important? Vaguely? If only because he insisted it was not? But it slipped from his peripheral nearly as quickly as it had entered it.

“I feel fine, thank you,” Zechariah said, though a far amount more agreeably than he usually protested.

Equally unusually (for he usually was too proud to accept such things), it did not occur to him quickly enough to stand on his own to prove his fineness, instead letting Crane steady him.

Zechariah looked up at Crane. What did he want to ask him? They could talk for hours, tell each other everything! Well, not the privileged information, but other than that! They would fall deeply in love, take on an orphanage! Crane could get, what is it the Catholics did? Crowned for sainthood? And then he could rail a Saint Elijah in his constabulary outfit!

That fond look … looked a little off. A shadow passed over his face, paler yet still flushed.

‘Yes,’ he wanted to say. ‘Ask me anything. Tell me everything.’

Instead, what came out was vomit.