Noble shrugged back at Ford, same gesture, not sure what to do otherwise. "Thanks, I guess," he said, "I'm sorry about what happened with the potion." He hadn't meant it. He still needed to figure out which ingredient was poisoned but it had all gotten delayed when he was mailing people samples and trying not to think about Daff, and he had not tested any of them. Maybe he should wait — maybe he shouldn't do it at all — certainly he should wait until after Grace's Coming Out Ball. Not because he thought anything could go wrong, because he didn't, but because it was a lot to balance potioneering experiments with their sisters' romantic futures.

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