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Dony lightly punched her in the shoulder. “Mulligan’s isn’t on campus. Meet us there once you get settled in a few days, ye’?”

Numbly, Atta got in her car and drove.

Sonder

Sonder ripped off his tie, unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt. What a fucking mess the day had been. He poured a glass of whiskey and lit one of his most expensive cigars. Sitting in a chair his mother would have skinned him for smoking in, he took a puff, exhaled, let the smoke envelop him as he looked at the sculpture Atta was so enamoured with.

He heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath tyres and looked at the clock. It was half past eleven. Setting his cigar and whiskey down, he went to the door, opening it to find Atta standing there, a box under one arm and an old carpetbag in the other.

“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Atta

She should just go back to the car. Her face was heated with embarrassment, her ears burning hot. This was way over the line.

Sonder glanced down at her hands and Atta looked dumbly at the bag she carried, then at every item she owned in the back of her car. “I didn’t think. This is so inappropriate, I’m sorry.”

His attention crawled back up to her face, and Atta wished she had a free hand to swipe at the blasted tear about to escape.

He said nothing. She turned, stepping off the first step and preparing herself to drive back to Dublin proper, to— To where she didn’t know. A soup kitchen?

Behind her, the door to Murdoch Manor creaked, and Atta closed her eyes, bracing for the sound of it shutting her out, shutting Sonder back into his crypt, safely away from her impropriety and carelessness. She couldn’t bear any more embarrassment.

But the sound didn’t come.

Atta looked over her shoulder to see he’d only opened it wider.

“Well?” he intoned, gesturing inside. “Are you going to come in or not?”

Relief flooded her. As soon as he stepped down the steps to take the box and bag from her, she swiped furiously at the hot tears she couldn’t stop. Thankfully, Sonder said nothing about them, only helped her inside and commanded she sit in a chair he’d surely just vacated judging by the fresh glass and still-smoking cigar sitting next to it.

He disappeared into the kitchen and returned several moments later with a fancy silver tea service, a glass of milk with a plate of biscuits, and a glass of wine. He set it in front of her, then moved his glass of whiskey to the tray too.

“Have your pick. Comfort food.”

Atta laughed, she couldn’t help it. He looked as dishevelled as she felt. “None of this is food at all but the biscuits.”

He shrugged. “I’ll get you whatever you’d like. Crisps?” His expression went from hopeful to sour. “Hm. I don’t have crisps. . .”

“Tea is fine,” she said, and he poured her a cup before taking the whiskey back and sitting across from her on the coffee table, roles reversed from the day she’d done the same when he was upset.

“You’re not going to ask me what happened?” she questioned, stirring a bit of cream into her tea.

“No.”

“I showed up at your house in the middle of the night crying, with boxes, and you’re not the slightest bit curious?”

He rotated his glass, the amber liquid swirling. “Of course I’m curious, but you’ll tell me when you’re ready. I’m not one to pry.”

Atta squinted at him. “Every bone in your body is made up of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. I don’t buy that for a second.”

He stretched across her to reach his cigar and she held her breath, every nerve within her coming alive with him so close. After a puff of the cigar, he said, “I’ll wait all night if it means you’ll stay.”

All of Atta’s teasing and prodding fled. She wasn’t certain what he meant by that, and she was too drained to decipher it, too drained to fight off the depression waiting in the wings to devour her. “I’ve been expelled.”

Sonder went very still. His voice was coated in ice when he finally spoke. “Please tell me that is a joke, Atta.”

She shook her head, trying to fight off another swell of tears. “No.DeanLynch”—she made a mocking face—“said he knew I was in the Trinity Cemetery. He suspected I had tampered with one of the graves, though he didn’t have proof. I told him I just picked a flower, but?—”