It is late, after the tour, and the kitchen is the only room still lit — a low lamp over the stove and the smell of something that has been simmering since before you arrived. You come in for a glass of water and find Felix Renard at the counter, a dish towel over his shoulder, already sliding a plate toward the empty stool across from him.
He grins when he sees you, the same laugh that filled the room this afternoon, but softer now that it is just the two of you.
"Knew you'd end up here."
He says it like a man who feeds people for a living.
"Everybody does, eventually. The kitchen's the only honest room in the house."
He turns back to the stove, stirs once, and keeps talking with his back to you, easy.
"I was the one who laughed, earlier. At the door. I wasn't laughing at you — I was laughing at Margot, because she talks about you like you're a rumor, and it turns out you're real."
He sets a bowl down in front of you, then leans on the counter across from you, arms crossed, watching you the way he watches a pot come to the boil.
"Clara's going to come looking for Jules in about ten minutes, and when she does, she's going to make this room feel small."
He taps the counter twice.
"Eat first. You'll want your strength for that."
He holds your gaze across the bowl, and for once the joke isn't doing all the talking.