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Ash nodded, and Cinder gave him the kind of look that suggested he wasn't remotely convinced agreement meant obedience.

“And assuming none of that happens, I'd strongly recommend you avoid letting another two-hundred-pound defenseman introduce you to the boards.”

Ash glanced toward me.

I narrowed my eyes. “Whatever you're about to say, don't.”

His mouth twitched. “I didn't say anything.”

“You were thinking very loudly.”

Cinder looked between us again before muttering something about regretting his career choices and beginning to pack his equipment.

By the time he left, Ash had been conditionally cleared to travel and potentially play, I'd acquired a written medication schedule because Cinder apparently trusted me more than his actual patient, and Ash had been instructed to spend most of the day doing as little as possible.

For once, he listened.

We spent the afternoon on his terrible couch without discussing his father or mother again. Ash eventually put the baking show on, and somewhere during the second episode, he shifted closer until his shoulder rested against mine. Neither of us acknowledged it, although by the third episode, his head had found the same place beneath my chin that it had occupied for most of the night.

I thought about Ignatius and Doryu while Ash watched somebody attempt to construct an edible windmill out of sponge cake.

Most of all, I thought about the fact that I knew something he didn't.

People were already looking into his father.

Last night, keeping that from him had felt uncomfortable. This morning, after he'd trusted me with the secret his father had used against him for years, it felt considerably worse.

Ignatius had been right about one thing: Ash had been frightened and cornered when he'd asked me to stay out of it, and confronting him before we knew what we were dealing with could've driven him straight back behind the walls he'd finally started lowering.

But the situation had changed.

Ash had told me what his father was using against him.

He'd told me why he'd been paying.

At some point soon, I was going to have to tell him Doryu was investigating, because there was a line between protecting someone and deciding what they were entitled to know about their own life.

I was beginning to suspect I was standing directly on it.

Cinder cleared Ash to fly that evening after another examination produced no new symptoms, although he repeated several times that permission to get on an airplane was not the same thing as permission to play hockey the following afternoon.

The team had already gathered at the airport when we arrived together. Ash carried his backpack while I carried everything else, and the moment we walked in, I became aware of an extraordinary amount of determined silence.

Dante looked at Ash, looked at me, and then very deliberately glanced toward the single car we'd arrived in. Baelor's eyebrows climbed, while Keegan developed an intense and entirely unconvincing interest in his phone.

Phoenix smiled.

That was worse than all of them.

“What?”

His smile widened. “I didn't say anything.”

“None of you are saying anything, which is considerably more suspicious.”

Keegan finally looked up from his phone. “Would you prefer commentary? Because I'm fairly sure Dante has been saving some.”

Dante brightened.