(I went back and revised the last entry, and added a chunk of new text. You may want to go back and re-read it before you continue here.)
"We weren't--" Elyssa swallowed.
Chris found his eyes still locked with Tammy's, and his mind filled with knowledge that he didn't want. It weighed his tongue down, pulled at his lips, and he knew it for a truth-speaking that Tammy had laid on them...
So he spoke truth. "You lost someone there," he said simply.
Tammy nodded. Amelie was still busy bringing Peter and Morri through, and for this one moment they could still speak.
"A brother? A sister?"
"A cousin," Tammy told him. "Closest I ever had to a brother, though."
Chris closed his eyes for a moment, but he didn't try to push the truth-speaking away. "I'm so sorry. The wolves were a part of that, and I hate them for it still. I defended the ones I could--" His voice caught. "It wasn't enough." That was more genuine emotion than he'd intended to show, but he was committed now whether he liked it or not. He stepped forward and leaned in so he could drop his voice to the barest whisper. "If you'll grant me your card, I'll tell you what I can. And I am so, so sorry."
He stepped back just as lady Amelie Hargrave said, "Tabitha, dear? Are you quite all right? That beast wasn't threatening you, was it?"
Tammy took a moment to study Chris' face as he shifted a step further back. He felt the truth-speaking charm unravel. Then she met the Hargrave Materfamilias' eyes and said, "No, he was most sympathetic. Could we perhaps host them here a day or so longer, while I reorient to the fact that it's now... April?"
Amelie Hargrave's expression suggested that she wasn't best pleased, but she nodded regally. "Of course. Your health and comfort are our foremost concern right now. Would you permit my brother Etienne to look you over?"
"Of course," said Tabitha Carterhaugh. "Though he'll find neither wounds nor indignities. The shadow-walkers treated me well except in the matter of time's passing, and the agents of the Ministry conducted themselves with admirable restraint."
"That is good to hear," said Amelie Hargrave, ominously. Or perhaps she only sounded ominous to Chris; he supposed it might be something in the nature of a guilty conscience, an awareness of all the thing that he wasn't telling people.
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