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“Are you busy?” Molly asked, not knowing how else to greet him.

“Already had my last session of the day,” he said. “I was just wrapping up.” He nodded for her to follow him.

Molly stopped in the doorway to the back room, stunned by the number of books crammed in a moderately sized office. Those on the wall-mounted shelves looked organized and well kept, but those scattered on the desk spilled everywhere. They were haphazard, panicked almost, a veritable biblio-explosion that included—for reasons that stalled Molly’s brain mid-thought—Bentley Burke with his feet propped up, a book about concussive brain trauma open in one hand, and a nearly empty tumbler clutched in the other.

Bentley glanced over the top of his book. He looked utterly unsurprised to see her there.

“What do you do here again?” she asked Bentley bluntly, lacking the capacity for eloquence. He couldn’t have done much actual work if he was having a drink before the workday had officially concluded.

Aster seemed intent on busying himself with straightening a particularly precarious stack of papers.

“A lot of things.”

Molly turned to Aster, seeking further explanation.

“He owns it,” Aster said with a small sigh. “Most of it at least. He’s my Eli, basically. Actually, Eli—well, and Justine—got the idea to go into business with you after . . . anyway.”

Bentley evidently had no comment on the matter, the barest hint of a knowing smile on his face.

“You know, Bentley, Eli kidnapped Pawntès today. Have any divine insight on that?”

For a fraction of a second, Aster stopped fidgeting. “Eli has our cat?”

Bentley snapped his book shut, dropped his feet off the table, and stood in a successive series of smooth movements. He foisted his tumbler into Aster’s hands and shrugged as if cat kidnapping—catnapping?—ranked relatively low on the list of things Molly might have told him.

“Eli’s cards have been interesting lately. I interpreted it as human companionship, but he got his head stuck on it being feline. You know how he gets.” He set his book on the table and moved to leave, clearly intent on giving them space.

He paused as he stepped by Molly, just long enough for a short message below his breath. “If I could make an observation: he’s scared too. Your cards were promising though.”

Bentley winked and continued his exit as if this was a perfectly normal way to say goodbye, passing through the door and disappearing before a quiet tinkle announced his complete departure from the building.

Aster released a sigh. “I should go ahead and lock up.”

Molly waited, leaning against the desk as she took in all the research around her. None of it was supposed to be here.

When Aster returned, he paused at the threshold as if afraid of coming too close. His fingers tapped against the glass Bentley had given him.

“I should also apologize for this morning,” he said.

“I didn’t realize you moved all your research here. Or that you still had so much,” Molly said.

“Maybe I’m more desperate than you thought.” He pressed one hand flat to the edge of the doorframe, a kind of personal anchor in unsteady waters.

He looked down at the glass in his hand, then at her, then at the glass again. Slowly, he lifted it and tapped it against the frame once, twice, three times.

Molly felt like crying. “I don’t know how to help.” A pause. “I need help too.”

They stood there, across from each other, stuck on opposite sides of an impasse.

Doubt seeped through Molly’s skin, soaking into her bones. She swallowed her fear as it nearly cracked her in half, forcing herself to face it head-on.

“When you showed me my ring, I—it felt like we could have a future where it might not matter to you that I couldn’t remember,” she said, self-doubt licking at the raw edges of her fear. “But you can’t let her go, can you? Who I was before.” Her arms instinctively crossed around her waist. In a quiet voice, hating to say it, having to say it: “Could you ever?”

A dark look crossed Aster’s face, something furious as her words traveled the space between them. She saw hurt. Anger. But then, as if physically redirecting his mental state, he shifted.

Aster approached and nearly crushed her with a hug, glass dropped somewhere on the desk beside her. He snaked a hand behind her head, holding her close. His chest rose and fell against her cheek, his breath uneven, almost ragged. It was a hug so similar and yet so different from the one Roy had given her earlier that same day.

“Is that how I’ve made you— God. Fuck, I never meant—” His brain and his words appeared at odds.