“Are you serious?” asked Damien slamming his cup against the table. Most of the heads in the small café turned this direction, more startled by the clatter, and Gerard reached over placing his hand around Damien’s.

“Calm down,” said Gerard. “This is already gone too and we don’t need you drawing unwanted attention.”

Damien took a deep breath waiving apologies to the other parties around them. The owner of the café, judging by her gait and the sureness in her step, approached their table with jagged eyes boring into Damien. 

“This isn’t your house, it’s mine,” said the owner. “I expect you to treat it with respect while you’re here. This is your first warning.”

“My apologies,” said Damien. Her expression changed as he stood sweeping his hat to the side and guiding her hand into his. He placed a delicate kiss upon the top, bowing while holding her gaze and smirked sincerely. Gerard noticed a flush creeping up the owner’s cheeks and cleared his throat. 

“Yes, well just don’t let it happen again,” stuttered the owner as she moved away, looking back at Damien.

“What was that?” snapped Gerard.

“Science and brains aren’t the only thing that can get you ahead,” said Damien planting himself back into his chair. He noticed the frost coagulating on the edges of the window next to him and traced circles into the glass canvas. 

“Your head would be on a platter if she was still around.”

“She would have been flirting just the same. How do you think I learned to be so good?”

Gerard smirked teetering on the edge of scrunching his face at the remark.

“Damn it, Damien,” he said. “I am quite fine not knowing the arrangements you had during your marriage.”

Damien flapped his hand in the air, chuckling to himself, then picked his tea cup asking for more of the delicious brew the café served. Gerard eased back into the back of his seat, creaking as he did so. Some patrons entered behind Damien casting curious glances at the two until their attention was drawn elsewhere.

“Back to business, please,” said Damien. “Why did Victor appoint Noah as his Gryphon?”

The slosh of liquid swirled cascaded into the white cup near Damien and wafts of crisp stream swayed to his nostrils. A delicate hand gripped the kettle leading to a face that looked at Gerard with a wink, plush lips simmered beneath decadent eyes peering at him. The server left and Gerard’s vision lingered on the woman until Damien slapped his arm while giggling. 

“Aye,” he said. “Now’s no time for wooing poor waitresses.”

“Sorry,” replied Gerard shaking his head. “Damien, your guess is as good as mine. Noah may not be an adept traveler, but he is resourceful. Craftiness trumps strength in politics and the ministry is a cesspool for snakes. Perhaps, Victor wanted a young mind to counterview his stoic nature.”

“No, that’s too convenient. Something doesn’t feel right, Gerard.”

Processions of noisy voices paraded past the café windows marching to a dream beat that thumped against Damien’s heart. Poorly construed signs depicting a triangle on fire bobbed above a sea of twisted faces moving down to one of the main thoroughfares. Other signs depicted a fist emblazoned against lightning harking that the commoners made the kingdom. One man from the crowd ran into the small haven ruining what little respite those inside had found.

“Come on you lollygags,” he screamed. “The evil of government must end. We must pave our own path to redeem the virtues this country was built upon, that we built with our bare hands.”

Damien arched off his chair about to spill words from his mouth, but the owner barged ahead, fanning a broom at the protestor. He tried to make more of an argument, stopping when the thistles poked him on the neck and in his eyes. His assorted necklaces and brocades were adorned with an unstrapped boot painted in the same manner as the Union Jack. The ones that feel inside were swept out by the broom after the ‘patriot’ scuttled back into the long procession of marchers. 

“Riots in the street, now?” asked Gerard. “I fear I’ve been away too long.”

“Yes, you have, all locked up in the dainty workshop you call a home,” said Damien. “However, I’d be amused to find out what it was before you jostled it into the poor shape it’s in now.”

“Even I haven’t explored everything in that place. It’s a trove of treasures waiting to be discovered. She hid so much, Damien.”

“From us both, apparently.”

Damien sipped his coffee savoring the bitterness on top of the familiar sweetness he always craved. Gerard’s gaze drifted to the window, with the people crowding the streets, moving away from him while he checked his time piece. Pangs of memories flooded Damien and he noticed small flecks of water forming near Gerard’s eyes. 

The old man’s glasses came off his face, touching down to the table as his arm brushed away any trace the flecks left. Damien touched Gerard’s hand that rested on the table, gently gliding over the rough hand strewn with callouses. 

“I know how much she meant to you and I haven’t helped in that process,” said Damien. “I’m sorry that I placed so much blame on you for her…”

Gerard lifted his slightly, trembling hand facing his palm to Damien. The old man took a sharp breath, steadying his cadence while his eyes locked onto Damien. 

“Damien, there’s something I need to tell you,” said Gerard. ‘Evelyn…”

A stone shattered one of the windows narrowly missing Gerard’s head as he ducked to the table. Damien jumped as another flew past his head and he dragged Gerard to the ground, flipping the table over for cover. Screams and shouts flooded the through the crowd as sharp whistles coming from a distance pierced the jumbled shrieks. 

“What the bloody hell?” shouted Gerard as the shatter of glass churned into harps of gunshots, plucked in a flurry by unsteady fingers.