The fire crackled sharply between us.
“When I was younger,” he said after a while, “I believed cruel men announced themselves clearly. That evil looked obvious.” His mouth curved faintly without humor. “Then I met kings.”
A chill moved through me unrelated to winter.
“John was not always like this,” Geoffrey continued quietly. “Or perhaps he was and learned he could be rewarded for it.” He stared down at his hands for a moment. “That is the danger power creates, I think. Not madness. Permission.”
The words settled heavily into the room.
“You begin convincing yourself small compromises are necessary,” he said. “Necessary for stability, for order. Necessary for survival.” His gaze lifted toward the fire again. “And eventually you wake one morning realizing nobody around you can safely disagree with you anymore.”
That was so much more terrifying than simple villainy.
Geoffrey leaned back slowly into the chair, exhaustion pulling visibly at him now that he had stopped pretending otherwise.
“Aldwin carries too much,” he admitted quietly after a long silence. “My father grows older every winter. Thames remains vulnerable if the war spreads further south.”
His jaw tightened slightly. “Every road back here, I spend half the journey wondering what I’ll find when I arrive.”
The words landed somewhere deep beneath my ribs. Not because of what he said, but because of what he carefully didn’t.
The firelight flickered softly across his face. Across tired eyes and winter-shadowed exhaustion and restraint worn thin by too many months of war.
Before I could stop myself, I said quietly, “My world wasn’t better at this, you know.”
His gaze shifted toward me immediately.
“At what?”
“Loneliness.”
The word surprised both of us a little.
I looked down at the blanket pooled around my hands. “People in my time are connected constantly. Phones. Emails. Messages. Social media.”
I laughed softly without humor. “You can technically reach someone every second of the day and still go weeks without anyone actually seeing you.”
Geoffrey listened without interruption.
“In Boston, I worked constantly. Entire weeks passed where most of my conversations happened in meetings or through a laptop screen.” I stared into the fire now too.
“I lived beside people for three years without learning their names. My friends scheduled dinners six weeks in advance because everyone was too busy surviving their jobs.”
The words kept coming once I started.
“There were nights I came home exhausted and ate dinner alone answering work emails because somehow productivity became more important than... than belonging anywhere.”
My throat tightened unexpectedly. “Nobody needed me. If I disappeared from my office tomorrow, they’d replace me before lunch.” A harsh laugh escaped. “I’m sure that’s what they did.”
Outside, the storm continued wrapping itself around Thames while firelight softened the edges of the room into gold and shadow.
“And here?” Geoffrey asked quietly.
The question undid me more than it should have. I swallowed hard before answering.
“Here people notice absence.”
His expression shifted slightly. I looked toward the fire before continuing.