Ben had thought Aldous must have told her, because he didn't think there was any way she could have deduced any of it on her own. She wasn't lying, though; he would have been able to tell if she was lying, he thought (though in all honesty, he didn't think he'd ever heard her lie, so maybe he wouldn't). Which meant that she'd somehow determined that there was some truth to this article without knowing any of the context that Aldous had. And she didn't seem to think that the truth was any of the parts that were true, because she thought too well of him. So when she'd said smothered embers, she'd meant...

"I don't know," Ben said with a flush, worried that he'd put his foot into his mouth and wouldn't be able to back out of it now. "I don't know that I'm following you, exactly."

He leaned in to pour the tea, since it must have finished steeping by now. It gave him something to do for a moment while he considered how he ought to respond. He moved her teacup over to her place and chewed his lip idly as he poured his own tea.

"There's a reason you didn't want Melody here for your visit," he said eventually, once he had replaced the teapot. "And it's not just because you missed me."