“It’s warm milk and honey,” I explain. “Not poison.” Just in case that needed clarifying.
“Gwenna.” His form sags, his voice rasping. “Come on. First those, now this?” He gestures at his bureau, where a cluster of thin, brown branches flocked with tiny white blossoms stands in a vase. “You really don’t have to?—”
“I didn’t,” I interrupt gently. “Not the flowers.”
Lanz looks from my face to the vase. Then back to me. “Oh.”
Neither of us speaks, but I’m sure we’re having the same thought.
Cal.
I tighten my grip on the mug, push it forward slightly. “Would you just drink it?”
Lanz practically scowls at me. “Why?”
“Because it’ll make you feel better,” I say. “And because you haven’t been to a meal in God knows how long.”
“Okay, okay.” Lanz lifts his hands in the air. “Just leave it on my desk.”
I shake my head. “Uh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t trust that you’ll actually do it,” I say.
And I won’t be able to look at the empty cup if I do, I add silently.
Lanz pouts, almostglowers,but he takes the mug from me.
Without, I notice, touching my fingers.
He drinks it—chugs it, really. But whatever. Victory, I guess.
“Thanks,” he murmurs, holding out the mug. Not meeting my eyes. “Really.”
I take the cup back. “Thankyou.” I glance down at it, at the slight milky-amber streaks clinging to the empty sides, and wonder what to make of it. But I don’t wonder long, just in case Lanz suspects anything. I make a mental note to snap a picture on my phone and look back up at Lanz.
But Lanz isn’t looking at me. He’s staring across the room again, at the bunch of blooming branches standing loyally in their vase, white blossoms lit up in the one patch of sunlight in the whole room.
“God.” Lanz murmurs, shaking his head slowly. “Freaking—he really didn’t have to?—”
Thunk.
The windowpanes rattle. Lanz jumps. So do I, the empty mug tumbling from my fingers and?—
Crack.
“Shit,” I say softly, and fly to the floor, where shattered pieces of ceramic frame my feet. “Shit.”
“It’s just a mug,” Lanz says—kindly, I notice. The softest his voice has been yet. “We have like a thousand of them.”
“No, I…” I shake my head. “I know.” I can’t explain why this mug matters,hismug matters, not without giving everything away. Gingerly, I gather the broken chunks into my hand, trying to remember what I’d glimpsed before I dropped it. Honey and milk, clinging to the inside? A little ring stuck around the bottom and sides? I don’t even know what I should have been looking for, and that’s about all I can recall. Just that it was there.
Shit, I think again. Standing back up, I look up at the window. “Whatwasthat?”
Lanz is peering out through the frost, staring down at the ground below.
“Bird,” he says simply. “Flew into the glass.”
