So, Ollie thought, he was having a meltdown. That's what Sam would have told him if his eldest sister was still alive to. Then she'd tell him to give himself twenty minutes to embrace the meltdown and then go deal with the shit. Lenore would have prescribed a long walk somewhere quiet. Carine....would have poured him a drink.

In a way, he did all three before he came back to Ty's wing - sitting with his head in his hands in a quiet corner of Club Castle, then walking through Town and the gardens at Heart Castle, and finally getting Cailean James to pour him a whiskey at his dad's bar on the edge of the Spade and Diamond districts before he walked back. By then, Elisha and Hadyn had left. He imagined Sarah had been by, and Carlos, too, but the hall was empty now except for a nurse in a chair in the hall, and he checked his watch. Just past six, he thought. Still early, but then, every person who cared about Ty was bent on making the people who'd done this pay - including him.

"I brought apology food," he said, lifting a bag up. "It is, unfortunately, the daily special at Mackinnon's, but Cailean assured me it was one of their cook's better attempts."