"What would be the most interesting piece of news," Mr. Lucius began pleasantly, buttering his toast with the unhurried confidence of a man who had never worried about scarcity, "or perhaps a did you know fact you've come across recently?"
His knife moved with precision, scraping just enough butter to glisten without excess. It was an opening gambit—civilization asserting itself through routine.
I paused mid-bite.
Miss Halle had leaned in just long enough to whisper that the dish before me was kedgeree, her voice conspiratorial, as if naming it correctly might keep it from judging me. The flavors were unfamiliar but rich—smoked fish, rice, eggs, spice braided into something colonial and comforting. Food with a history it refused to explain.
I looked up, chewing slowly, waiting to see who would accept the invitation.
Heiwa did not. She was focused intently on her porridge, stirring it with quiet discipline, as though it might confess something if handled improperly.
"The perpetrator responsible for the recent string of killings has yet to be apprehended," Miss Lakshmi said instead.
She sipped her chocolate as she spoke, unhurried. The words landed heavily, then simply… sat there.
I glanced instinctively at Mr. Lucius, waiting for a correction, or context, or at least a polite flinch.
"Hmm," he said after a moment, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. "That is quite unfortunate. Twenty-nine deaths so far, if I recall correctly."
His tone suggested this was a regrettable statistic—like a delayed shipment, or a canceled opera. Tragic, certainly. Inconvenient? Barely.
"Oh, on that matter," Zara added lightly, applying a translucent orange-peel jam to her toast with a delicate swirl, "the individuals I was with yesterday mentioned an attempt at… something."
Her phrasing was vague in the way of someone who knew exactly what she was withholding.
I swallowed.
"What is this about a murdering spree?" I asked at last, my voice sounding too loud in my own ears.
"Oh, it isn't exactly a spree," Miss Halle replied calmly, arranging a slice of ham onto her plate with meticulous care. "That would imply continuity. Or intent."
She buttered her bread and continued eating.
"It's more accurate to say there have been twenty-nine unconnected criminal incidents," she went on, "each resulting in death."
Unconnected.
The word sat wrong. Like a correction applied too quickly, overwriting something that had almost surfaced.
"I don't believe I caught your names," Zara said suddenly, looking up as she parted her fish. Her gaze flicked between Heiwa and me, curious but not probing—like someone cataloging items already purchased.
"Victoria," I said after a brief hesitation. "And this is Heiwa."
I felt her presence beside me stiffen slightly. She offered a polite nod, restrained and formal.
"They're friends," Miss Halle said without looking up.
The word friends felt like a sticker hastily applied over a crack.
"Do you believe the incidents are connected by purpose?" Heiwa asked quietly, cutting into her liver with careful strokes.
Zara's eyes narrowed, the slitted pupils catching the light as she considered. "There is nothing that definitively says they are not."
"That is true," Heiwa replied, too evenly.
The table hummed with restrained energy. Silverware chimed softly against porcelain. Outside, the sun continued its flawless impersonation of benevolence.
"If one were to take a grand tour this year," Mr. Lucius said, stepping in with the ease of a man practiced at redirecting rivers, "which country should be our first stop?"
A laugh almost escaped me—sharp, inappropriate, immediately swallowed.
"I haven't been to many places," Heiwa answered after a moment, accepting the salt shaker when it was passed to her. "But there are… many I would like to see."
"And where do you currently reside?" Zara asked, her attention sliding back toward us. Heiwa did not respond immediately—whether by choice or calculation, I couldn't tell.
"Pale—" Mr. Lucius began, then caught himself. "Victoria. You reside there as well?"
"Yes," I said—
—and then stopped.
His gaze had drifted past me, toward the window. The shift was subtle, but precise. Like a conductor lifting his hand.
The explosion arrived on cue.
The sound tore through the morning, violent and abrupt, rattling glass and shattering the fragile fiction of safety we'd been dining inside. The tableware jumped. Somewhere, far below, something essential had been rewritten.
Smoke rose in the distance.
Breakfast, it seemed, had finally decided to tell the truth.