Chapter 8: Crowe Volunteers Nothing, Perfectly

The parlor car was the warmest space on the train. Someone had left both heating elements running at full, and the confined air had gone thick and close, the smell of old velvet and brass polish layered under something that Celestine identified, without comment, as the specific temperature of rooms where people have recently cried.

Hadden Crowe was already seated when they arrived. This was the first thing.

He had chosen the chair farthest from the door — the one with its back to the wall and a clear sightline to every entrance — and had arranged himself in it with the deliberate ease of a man who wanted to appear as though he had not chosen carefully. A glass of water, untouched, on the table beside him. His hands folded in his lap. A dark suit without a visible crease, which meant either that he had not slept or that he had slept in the manner of people who have learned to sleep without disturbing the architecture of themselves.