Tobias did come back by the time the girl was ripping the splinter into smaller splinters. He sat down a tray with two glasses of ale as well as three cups of steaming broth, some bread, and cheese. "I figured we might as well eat sum't before the journey. It will strengthen ye," he told Alice. And you could use sum't with the alcohol," he told Anthony, and he set one cup of broth in front of him. Alice took her cup of tea, but did not respond otherwise.

Finally. Took some damn time, he did. Anthony glanced down at the cup of broth that Tobias gave him, but pointedly ignored it in favor of his drink. He did not have even the slightest bit of an appetite. "Thank you," he said, as he took a sip from his glass.

Tobias didn't pay attention to the fact that the food was ignored by his two table mates. He took his own bowl and some of the bread and started eating. He was always hungry. He didn't even mind the silence. The drink seemed to have cheered Anthony up, and that was the only reason he had offered. Conversation could be dangerous and would most certainly be awkward.

Anthony downed about half the glass, set it down on the table, and rest his head on his hands once again as he waited for the alcohol to start doing its job. More importantly, he was waiting for a reason to excuse himself and go the hell back home.

Alice sipped her tea quietly, Tobias ate his broth. The latter suddenly noticed that the other two weren't eating. "Ye haven't touched yer food," he commented.

"I'm not hungry," Alice said in a small voice.

How very perceptive of him. "Neither am I," shrugged Anthony, who was currently very occupied with closely examining a tiny crack on the wood of the table.

"Oh..." Tobias said, a little disappointed. "Well, you should eat, at least, Alice. Tis good for t' bairn, and the journey will be cold." He took one of the bowls and set it in front of her.

The girl glanced at the food disinterested, but then picked up a spoon and started dipping it in and out of the broth.

Anthony kept busy with that little crack in the wood, until he eventually decided to stop and finish his drink. He was contemplating whether or not it would be rude to leave. For a moment he looked at the other two as they spoke, and then looked away. He was getting tired.

Tobias looked at Alice and then at Anthony, feeling like a teacher supervising two sulky children. At least no disaster was going on right now, so there was that.

Alice put the spoon to her mouth, but only let it touch her lip before lowering again. She sucked on her lip to get a taste of the broth. All the while, she watched Anthony. "You know Elijah, then?" she suddenly asked.

"Alice!" Tobias begged.

The table was turning out to be very interesting. He ran his fingers across some of the cracks in the wood, and then started admiring a small splinter. "Yes," responded Anthony, rolling around the splinter between his fingers until it did what splinters do, winced, pulled it out and decided that the table wasn't all that interesting anyways.