Chapter 18: Donal Asks What Both of Them Actually Believe

Donal arrived on a Saturday, which he later decided was either accidental or inevitable, the distinction having collapsed somewhere around his third year of studying philosophy.

The café was quieter than its weekday self — a couple near the door sharing a newspaper, an older man with a crossword who had been on the same clue since Donal arrived — and Aeron and Seris were at their table with the particular quality of stillness that Donal had learned, over the preceding weeks, meant they had been there for some time and were thinking hard about things they hadn't yet said to each other. The espresso machine hissed. Margaret was moving behind the counter with the efficient economy of someone who had done the same actions ten thousand times and had recently, almost imperceptibly, begun to enjoy them again.

Donal ordered a flat white. He sat down across from them without being invited, which he had stopped asking permission to do around chapter five of their acquaintance, and he put his bag on the floor and his elbows on the table and he looked at them.