When she was too preoccupied to be looking his way, Elias frowned. They might have had a history of meaningful little gifts and gestures, but he hoped she wasn’t purely irritated about this – it was hardly the first birthday he had ever had, and certainly he had passed several of them with less fuss than this.

“I haven’t eaten,” he reassured her, as if all was not lost, they could have pancakes if she liked. He would have said as much, but Daff had just placed the flowers out before him, and his smile softened at them in fondness. He put his nose to one of the carnations as she brought out the pumpkin cake, which was gesture enough already.

He had just looked over at Daffy to say as much when he witnessed – something not right with her. He pushed up out of his chair uncertainly, wanting to round towards her and steady her if need be, but not wanting to overreact, make things any worse than they were.

He thought about her fainting spell at the garden show, and the hospital, and the not-sleeping and – was she suffering again now somehow, and he had missed it? Was that why she had slept so late today, the pure exhaustion? It was his turn to touch her shoulder, just gently – his eyebrows knitted. She had been talking to Amaryllis, then, about something healer-related. A bad sign. “Daff? What are you talking about? Is something wrong?”

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