If you say a thing firmly enough, most people will not challenge you, and you can go years, decades, an entire life, being wrong at the top of your voice and never once being corrected, because no one bothers.

But confidence has one fatal weakness, which is that it only works until it meets someone who actually knows.

Arthur knew.

And the moment Arthur began to speak, quietly, in the specific unhurried way of a person stating facts rather than opinions, all of Julian’s confidence was revealed for what it had always been, which was not knowledge at all, but only volume.

And Arthur was not even to the worst part yet.