[Paul could go for a small goth child of his own to pick at when the party is mentioned. There's another thing to dissect and slot into discrete categories: it was quite an event, and had been almost enough to drown memory in a sloshing bucket of golden liquor and bronze spice.

It wasn't even really his birthday. It wouldn't make sense for this to be a gift. The laws of this universe bend towards poetry, but not everything that rhymes is verse.]

It was. You'll have to be at the next one.

[The revenge party, that is, which will take another round of explanation at some later date.]

Faintly surreal is how it tends to be. [His shoulders rise higher on one side than the other when he shrugs.] ...you were right. I was overreacting.

[That wasn't exactly what Palamedes had said, but it's what had turned out to be the case.]

So that's one more controlled variable. If the sun would come up, I'd say you picked the perfect time to come back.