Stephen blinks, his hand falling away from her chatelaine and the drape of her skirts. She’s doing that thing again. Dropping in a baffling reference which hints that there’s certainly a story there, which means he has no choice but to ask for more detail, because of course he can’t not.

(But even this, too, is a relief to see: Gwenaëlle getting her feet back under her, settling her unsettled demeanour, piecing together those shreds of normalcy. Behaving more like herself.)

“Retired? But he—” A pause, trying to process that, because it doesn’t really track. “But he still does all the same sort of work. He’s not, say, out at a cottage in the countryside keeping bees or whatever. And— he tried to assassinate Thranduil?”