Don Juan wasn't following her meaning at all, and supposed that there was something significant about here, meaning the room they were in. He hadn't paid attention as they'd been bustled in, except to note that it was a bedroom and presumably the one they were meant to spend what very little remained of the night in. Now he looked around him, eyebrows raised, as if he expected the reason she was reacting this way might become evident once he'd taken in the decor.

If asked half a second ago whose bedroom it was he would have guessed it belonged to no one; a guest room, one of several guest rooms, made ready for anyone who needed to spend a night and mostly devoid of personality. He was surprised to find that wasn't the case; this was clearly a lived-in room. There was a hand mirror on the vanity alongside a hairbrush. A collection of spare ribbons he recognized from the pattern of Valencia's hair today. This was the room she had prepared for the wedding in — more than that, though. This was the room she had lived in. He was in her space, and the realization struck him as solemnly as though he'd just walked into a church and realized he was talking too loud and disturbing those who had come to worship. He did not belong here.

I need to tell her, he thought, but it occurred to him as she giggled again that he didn't know whether she was sober enough to really hear him. The post-wedding party had been going on for hours; he couldn't really blame her if she was drunk. (He wasn't exactly sober himself, but the seriousness of the situation had sobered him enough to get through a conversation — he wasn't sure the same was true of her). But if he didn't talk to her tonight, then what?

Well, even if he did talk to her tonight, then what?

"Let's sit down?" he suggested, though after he said it he realized this wasn't exactly a parlor. They didn't have a wealth of chairs. There was the one at the vanity and there was... the bed.

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