The rain comes off the sea and hits the glass of the house like gravel. Aonghas Mirill takes your coat before you have finished taking it off.
He hangs it on the third hook, not the first two, and looks at you for a moment — not up and down, just at your face, the way a man checks a thing he is responsible for.
"You are wet."
He says it flatly, and then, because it is clearly the whole speech he prepared:
"There is wine in the kitchen. Zephan will talk for an hour and then he will ask you something, and you do not have to say yes to it."
He turns and goes down the hall, and stops at the kitchen door.
"One thing."
He does not turn around.
"Whatever he asks. You answer it to me as well. Not tonight. When you have thought about it."