Zechariah watched Elijah’s struggles play across his face. Watched his expressions contradict his words. When was it he had started watching for those, in him? Usually, he afforded his friends some privacy in their emotions. Once upon a time, even, he never thought to question his friends.

Or his lovers.

But the words fell away in favor of one: Wards. He knew the Wards? Those bastard, self-destructive cretins? Words words something about letters Wards.

“Did you know Simon,” he deadpanned.

Not ‘a Mr. Simon Ward,’ or even ‘the convicted murderer Ward’. Simon. Slicing through the air as intimately familiar as a surgeon’s knife with layers.