Page 167 of The Sun He Buried

It doesn’t.

Snowpetal climbs over my shoulder. Her front paws land against my back while her tail swings across my face.

I catch it before one of the spikes reaches my nose.

“Then I made coffee. Well I didn’t make the coffee, the very nice kitchen lady already made it. I just put it in a cup,” I say.

Baldr sets the poker against the stone.

“For him.”

“That’s generally why people make coffee when another person is sitting at the table.”

“He has servants.”

“They left.”

“Convenient.”

I look at him.

Baldr closes his eyes.

“No,” he says. “That was unfair.”

Snowpetal climbs down my arm and lands on the blanket.

Baldr comes back to the bed. He sits beside me, close enough that our knees touch.

“I don’t like him using your kindness to get near you.”

“He didn’t ask me to come.”

“He never has to.”

It comes out harder than he means it to. His hand covers mine.

“Sól.”

“I made one cup of coffee.”

“I know.”

I turn my hand over under his. “I didn’t forgive him.”

His thumb stops against my knuckles. “I know.”

“You keep saying that,” I say, “but your face says I confessed to hiding him under the bed.”

Baldr glances down.

Snowpetal has pushed her head beneath the frame and is trying to fit the rest of herself after it.

“He wouldn’t fit,” he says.

“The mask may catch.”

There. A little of him comes back.