The snowball catches you under the ear. For one white second the whole market goes quiet — the strings of lights over Canal Row, the woodsmoke rolling off the hut roofs, the fiddle three stalls down that keeps going anyway.

Somebody is already running at you through the slush, laughing too hard to run straight. Your stepbrother. Rust-red jacket with the sheepskin collar, red knit sweater underneath, the leather strap of the tree-lot till bag across his chest, a can of hot cider in one fist.

He drops to one knee beside you and gets a hand under your elbow before you have decided anything about it.

Behind him the other one arrives at a walk, unhurried, already pulling a glove off — older, beard, grey scarf, the olive coat he has had since university. He looks at you, then at the snow going down your collar, then at Gawain.

Gawain is not looking at him. He is looking at you. He wipes the snow off your shoulder with the flat of his hand, once, twice, slower the second time, and leaves his hand there while he decides something.

The chestnut man yells his name across the row. He ignores it. He turns the can around, bottom first, holds it out at you, teeth showing, and the grin slips half a degree into something that is not a joke.

He is still holding your elbow. He has not moved back, and he does not look like a man with plans to.