Her eyes thinned, looking more suspicious than interested. He couldn’t blame her after Talsin’s stunt from before.

He withdrew the pouch he bought—very Syngorn-esque, its body a sheer emerald green with golden-yellow lace tying off the top. He pulled the drawstring open and fished out a folded-up sheet of parchment while Day slowed to a stop beside him, frozen like an ice sculpture in place when he spied it.

Cihro grinned. “There was actually an undisclosed first draft to that letter I sent you that kicked off the whole search, but they were Day’s words. I just took what he said and made it nice.”

“Oh?”

“Here.” He passed it to her. “We wanted to hold onto it in case we ever ended up on better terms so we could have a laugh about it.”

She unfolded the note and skimmed the text. She scoffed, smiled, and tucked it into a hidden breast-pocket of her dress. “Was holding onto this your idea or Dayereth’s?”

“Mine,” Cihro said. Day bloomed red, shoulders hiked up to his ears, but his lips were pressed together, trying not to laugh.

“To think you had faith our relationship would improve even while writing such things,” she said, tapping the pocket. “I should be touched.”

“I’m glad you see it that way.” Cihro pulled out the second gift, a wooden block whittled into a hand giving the middle finger—long fingers with prominent knuckles, since Kishore was his model. “I also made this as a Winter’s Crest gift. I made them for everyone.”

She plucked it from him with more caution than the note, holding it where the wrist merged into a square base. “You mean to say you made carvings of middle fingers for everyone?”

“Oh, no,” Cihro laughed, and for a moment he regretted that he didn’t. Next time. “I made carvings of different things. Yours is the only one that’s a middle finger.”

“I’m honoured. Where shall I display this? My front entrance? The banquet hall?” She rotated it in the light, then took the pouch from him and dropped it back inside. “I do wonder if this could be seen as an insult to Syngorn.”

“But you don’t.”

“No,” she said, smiling again, fainter. “Thank you for the…gifts, and dinner. It’s been…different. Pleasant, even, at least for my part.”

Cihro nodded. He wondered if it was easier for her to forfeit the noble façade when he and Day were around and they treated her like a person—family—instead of royalty. He wasn’t even sure he could call it a façade; he didn’t know where the noble ended and Theotae began or if they were one and the same. How much did one influence the other? 

Day shuffled forward to hug her. An awkward silence dusted the space once they split. She opened an arm to the side, a single eyebrow raised at him, and he relented, stepping forward to hug her as well.

It wasn’t as bad as he expected. She didn’t stiffen or touch him like he was going to sully her clothes. Instead, she wrapped both arms around him snugly—briefly, but with purpose, giving him just enough time to return it. And then he thumped her on the back to at least make it kind of weird, because he didn’t know if he could deal with a serious hug yet.

She separated and patted him on the cheek. He frowned to the tune of Day snickering until she patted him on the cheek, too. The worst part was it didn’t feel wrong, even if it was annoying. He wasn’t the oldest sibling anymore, now that they could comfortably call each other siblings without contempt, and he could expect all the patronizing it entailed.

He’d take patronizing over harsh and insufferable. His brother smiled a lot more than he used to.