Roy didn't come to dinner.He thanked Ethan when Ethan relayed the invitation, considered it for a moment with his arms crossed and his eyes on the middle distance, and said he had crew paperwork to finish before morning. Ethan didn't push. Roy's absence from a thing was rarely accidental and was usually its own form of correctness — he understood instinctively which moments belonged to other people.So it was just the two of them in the estate's main dining room, which Marcus used rarely enough that it had the particular quality of a space preserved rather than inhabited. A long table, two place settings at one end close together, candles because the overhead lighting was inadequate and Marcus had said so to no one in particular while lighting them.The food was simple. Marcus had prepared it himself, which surprised Ethan until he remembered that Marcus had been alone in this house for years and had presumably developed the necessary competencies.They ate without speaking for a whi