I think I actually started to move.

And beside me, I felt Caleb go rigid with the very same impulse, his hand tightening on the edge of the table, both of us on the knife-edge of the explosion Beatrice had been provoking for years.

But neither of us moved, because in the same instant, we both looked down at Chloe.

And Chloe had already seen the card.

She was looking at it, that single cold word set beside her plate, and I braced myself for the tears, for her to crumple, for her to turn to me with that heartbreaking wounded face and ask me to fix it.