“Sure,” Bastien says, with mild and uninterested agreeableness, the same way a hungry fellow might want to breeze past commentary on the taste of bread he can’t have. Ellis isn’t going to tell him why it matters. He is—or he was, before correcting Ellis’ impression of him today—good for holding and delivering things. Alright.

(Maybe he is digging up stones to patch the holes in his friend-repelling wall before Ellis goes off again. Maybe.)

Really, it’s a relief to have it done. The ring’s in Ellis’s hand. The rope from his internal tug-o-war lies slack. If the enchantment could help them or couldn’t, if Yseult is going to be cross, if that stone winds up pointing in a direction he’d rather it not, it’s out of his control now. Dealing with things is much easier than deciding them.

His attention goes back to his work, drawing one paper close to his nose to evaluate the penstroke of an O. “Bonne journée,” comes at a distracted delay, with a strained smile, but that’s not as bad a sign as a big fake one would have been.