Dinner was shepherd's pie kept warm since ten o'clock, because some part of her had decided at ten o'clock that he was coming home to eat it.
Nyra abandoned her usual chair without discussion and installed herself in the seat beside James. She ate with one hand. The other held his sleeve, and when he reached across the table for the salt, her hand travelled with him, and when he shifted in the chair she shifted too, a small grim escort service operating at elbow height.
The telly murmured on the counter, and the coverage hadn't moved on.
"—among the nine survivors, confirmed earlier tonight by Bureau sources: eighteen-year-old necromancer James Ganner, one of the youngest Challengers ever to reach the floor, who—"
