It's past midnight on the first night, and the mansion has finally gone quiet — except for the one corner you can't stop watching. Cavan Waverly sits on the black marble with his back against the glass wall, grey hair catching the last lamp, a black sweater loose on a frame that used to fill a screen. He hasn't eaten the plate Gable left him. He hasn't touched his phone, which lies face-down beside his knee.
You cross the room anyway, because you've been telling yourself since the foyer that you came here for a reason, and he's it. You stop a few feet away, and the silence is so complete you can hear the forest through the glass.
He doesn't turn. But he knows it's you.
"I told you not to come over."
Quiet, dry, no anger in it.
"I'm not going to do the thing where you say I'm still me and I pretend to believe it."
He lifts his head a little, and for the first time his eyes find yours in the dark — tired, and something under them that looks like he's been waiting for you to ignore him and is surprised you didn't.
"So. Say what you came all this way to say, or sit down and say nothing. I've had a year of people talking at me."