For a moment Alfred took her I'll be in touch to mean that she had more that she wanted to discuss, and he optimistically thought perhaps there would be something to say other than just what had been said already. Maybe she had changed her mind about one of the things that he'd thought was a foregone conclusion, or maybe she'd had an epiphany about some new course of action they could pursue moving forward. A hint of a smile flickered across his face (more in his eyes, really, than his mouth) before it occurred to him that that might not have been what she'd meant at all. She was assigned to de-curse his boat, and to de-curse him, after all — she basically had to be in touch, sooner or later, as part of her job. Maybe I'll be in touch was an indirect response to his offer to write: don't write me, I'll write you. That would indicate that she didn't think there was anything else to say, and she wanted to control the tone and the content of their correspondence when it did begin again.

He should have been expecting that, but the possibility disappointed him nonetheless. "Yeah, alright," he agreed, with a bit of a lump in his throat. He waited until she'd gone, then leaned back on the bed frame with a weary sigh. "Sorry I almost died," he told Evander. "I promise I wasn't trying to do anything stupid."