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“Right.” He slid the cup another inch towards her, his fingers brushing hers as she took it. “See you Thursday, then. For the coffee.”

“You know everybody,” Cassian said once the other customers had gone. “That woman’s face changed completely when you joked with her. She went from normal to happy in one second.” Cassian’s eyes tracked Ruari as he wiped down the coffee machine. “How do you remember how you need to be with everybody, Ruari?”

“You work a counter long enough, you just know how to work each person.”

“How do you work me?”

“I keep you in sweets, mostly.” Ruari didn’t look up from the tray he was restocking. “It’s the only thing that keeps you quiet, and coming back for more.”

“I’ll always come back,” Cassian said. “The guy at Providence doesn’t give me free things.” He paused, and his ears went hot before the rest of his face caught up. “And he doesn’t talk to me the way you do.”

Ruari’s hands stopped on the tray. “What way’s that, then?”

Cassian stuffed the rest of the croissant into his mouth.

The croissant was enormous, and he’d bitten off more than his mouth could handle. His cheeks bulged. Flakes of pastry stuck to his lower lip, and a rivulet of melted butter ran down his chin.

Ruari waited.

Cassian chewed thoroughly. He chewed and chewed and kept his eyes on the display case, where the remaining croissants sat in their neat rows. By the time he swallowed, Ruari had moved on to the till, his question forgotten.

“It’s my day off.”

Ruari glanced over his shoulder. “Is it, now?”

“Colin and Diwa have taken Tala to see Stephen and Ryland, and they said I could come but I wanted to do something by myself. I’m going to the markets. I’ve never properly explored them on my own before, and I want to see how many free samples I can get without Colin telling me I shouldn’t have any more.”

“Free samples, huh?”

“Yes. From the food stalls. There’s a cheese one near the bridge that gives you tiny cubes on a toothpick, and I’ve had four in one go before. Would’ve had more, but Colin made me move on.”

Ruari hung the cloth over the tap and turned around fully. “You going to try the jellied eels?”

“What are jellied eels?”

“Eels. In jelly.”

Cassian’s nose wrinkled. “Are the eels alive in the jelly?”

“No, Cass. They’re dead. They’ve been chopped up and boiled and set in their own cooking liquid, and people eat them cold out of a tub with a plastic fork, usually while looking a bit miserable about it.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“That’s English food for you. What about a spotted dick?”

“A spotted what?”

“Spotted dick. It’s a pudding. Suet and dried fruit, steamed in a cloth. Your nan would’ve made it if you’d had the right sort of nan.”

Cassian didn’t have any sort of nan, but the name alone was enough to make him laugh, because Ruari had said dick with such a straight face.

“So,” Ruari said. He leaned towards Cassian, the muscles shifting under his rolled sleeves, which Cassian noticed and then immediately pretended not to. “If I came with you. Would you try everything I try?”

He wanted to walk through the markets with Ruari so badly that his feet were already braced against the stool’s footrest, ready to launch him off it and towards the door.

But Colin’s voice arrived first in his mind.

The people who love you properly don’t want you smaller. They want more of you. More of your opinions, more of your quarrels, more of the bits that are inconvenient and loud and difficult to manage. If someone’s asking you to believe them without question, if they’re trying to disappear what you want and what you need so that they can have their way: that’s not love. That’s not what you need.