Her steadiness made Corwin hesitate one more time.

But at a quarter past nine, when the shop was empty and the staff were closing out, he saw the heavy suitcase parked by the storage-room exit, and something in him that had been coiling for two months finally gave.

That hesitation was the last off-ramp, and he would think about it often afterward — the way the truth had been trying to reach him even then, through the plain evidence of her character, if only he had listened to it.

Because that is what her steadiness on the festival day actually was: evidence.

A person watches someone for two months and the watching tells them things, whether or not they choose to hear them.

Corwin had watched Espe catch that tray, had watched her work a brutal day without a single complaint, had watched three years of her showing up early and staying late and treating the customers with more care than the job required — and all of it was data, all of it was the real answer to the question he thought he was asking.