It had been two days now — the evening of the 26th, the entirety of the 27th, and most of the 28th — and Ben was feeling rather restless. Melody had delivered on her promise of letters, but the words on paper conveyed nothing, really. He had no idea how she was feeling or what she was thinking, or how long she would put up with this before she gave up on him. And he still had no real indication from Aldous of when he might be allowed to go back home without suspicion.

The first day he'd had nothing to do, really, except sulk. Yesterday he'd done some small amount of work, just what he could accomplish with owls, to try and make the day seem shorter. Today, he'd decided to actually go out to Jewell's office. He didn't think Aldous would like it, but Ben wasn't a prisoner here. He had intended to get home before either of his brothers, but there had been more work waiting for him than he'd thought there would be (only reasonable, given that he'd been blowing his job off basically all week) and when he finally flooed back to his brother's home, Aldous was already there.

"I went to the distillery," he explained stiffly, though his brother hadn't yet asked. "I still have a job, you know, and I intend to keep it. You can owl Anne Cartney at the front desk if you don't believe me."

Aldous Crouch