Noble straightened further in his chair at Ford’s tone, a rigid posture, and frowned at his brother. Ford didn’t use that tone with him, orders and declarations and all ‘this is the way things are’ — or at least Noble could never recall Ford using it on him. It chafed, right away and in a bone-deep way, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

”Excuse me?” Noble said, because there were plenty of other arguments he could make against this (that it was too expensive, that he needed volatile ingredients, that Ford didn’t really know what he was talking about.) But this was the first thing he said, because he could not get over this: the sound of his brother ordering him to do things. Ford was older, but they were friends, and this had been Noble’s house first — Noble’s space to live and work and do whatever he wanted in.

(Also — well, it was not like Ford knew enough about potions to be able to tell if Noble actually followed through on throwing out these ingredients. But still this protestation was what popped out of his mouth first, because Ford couldn’t tell him what to do. He wasn’t one of the girls. This didn’t apply to him. And maybe Ford would back down and he wouldn’t want to have to lie.)

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