It’s two nights that she’s away from the boat, in the end.

Her cousins oblige her — relieved, the first evening, when she arrives with company and doesn’t expect much of theirs. Guilfoyle doesn’t join her; has never cared for the Hightown residence, prefers not to be under a de Coucy roof if he can avoid it, assesses her mood when leaving and thinks himself unnecessary. The second evening she’s gone from the house falls on the Gallows’ usual pizza night, and he finds himself in the galley, having collected one out of habit, neither Florent nor Gwenaëlle in residence to appreciate it.

He leaves a slice covered on a plate in Stephen’s office, and withdraws to his own rooms with the rest. The next morning, when Gwenaëlle lets herself into the galley to make tea, it still smells faintly of Stark’s own recipe.

It’s early, when she does. Absurdly so — still more dark than not, the first fingers of morning only beginning to reach across the harbour, early enough that it’s the scent of her tea that Stephen wakes to, Gwenaëlle herself half-undone in yesterday’s clothes, sat at her desk, drinking it.

Small Yngvi has slinked off of him, gone to wind around her ankles, interested in the possibility that she might herald an early breakfast.