Home was a mortuary. That chill passed over him, that unnerving feeling of standing where he knew the dead had passed at one point or another. There was some level of that in every building: Whitby was an old place, after all. But not like this. Not this ever-looming gloom that made him wary of resting against the very walls, lest fingers tapped back and a fading voice creak, “help”.

Some animals ate their own in the wrong conditions. Perhaps Nisa, too, was just starved by a hunger she could never sate.

“You are too kind, Nisa,” he said, keeping his hands in his pockets.

Up close, there was blood on his breath and … something else. Something that dwarfed that. Something from his collar, and his chest. Something … flowery.

“I shall be a while,” he said, for he knew better than to mislead her about the time Aslan took in the washroom.

It was always too long. The least abrasive way to get that damned glue off involved a thorough soaking.

He handed his coat to her and murmured his gratitude, bare hands fixing an already fixed tie (though it looked a little rumpled) before carefully working fingers under his wig to find the clips.