It's true she makes a practice of being expressive and readily parsed—Madame Fitcher laughs and smiles and passes out coy looks over card tables, and stamps her boots when she comes in from the sheeting rain; she bats her eyelashes in ways that sometimes imply a joke and sometimes do not, and is often visibly pleased with herself. But here, and not infrequently in his presence, she slips toward something partly illegible. Yes, she wants to hear it. This business about his work, and what will inevitably become of him, and the very unlikely escape route sketched like something out of smudging graphite.

What she thinks of it is difficult to say, although maybe absence is a thing that can be deciphered too with practice. Who knows. She's not much of a scholar.

After a moment's consideration, Fitcher applies herself to the lacing at the neck of his tunic. When there is space to, she slips her fingers past the fabric's edge in an effort to coax out the snake lurking there.