[ Bastien’s hands still long enough for him to look up, touched and smiling. He’d always assumed the truth—the truth aside from the murder and blackmail parts, and sometimes even those—would bore anyone who learned it. Not even a properly tragic orphan, behind the curtain.

But he doesn’t for a second doubt that By means it. ]

It’s always felt like the opposite, to me. I think it always will, even we are eighty and repeating ourselves all the time.

[ He ties off the thread for the button, gives it a tug, and offers one of the remaining handful of basic biographical facts he has yet to volunteer, since it’s topical: ]

My father was a tailor. Not a good one—or, I don’t know, maybe he used to be. Maybe he was good for Kaiten.

[ He can’t explain that the hours his father fussed over his clothes, even if it was only because ragged children were a bad advertisement, were some of the only hours he can recall feeling looked-after. But it’s there, wordlessly, while he trims and tucks the thread and gives By’s chest an all done pat. ]