Eli thought he was doing fairly well around Ambrose as the next few days unfolded. He acted perfectly cool—no, he was perfectly cool—when Ambrose was up and walking around the cabin again. And he didn’t even think too much about how Ambrose sat next to him at dinner every night, or greeted him every morning. And as Ambrose spent every other waking moment in his lab, Eli found it easier to focus on his own next steps. Scroll through apartments near Dawn, click through science lessons when no one was around. Research the various schools in the area. Just to see.

“Found anything you like?” Ambrose’s quiet voice made Eli jump, and he twisted to find the man standing behind him. Eli closed the laptop—which was thankfully on apartment listings, and not on lesson plans—and gave a noncommittal shrug.

“A few.”

“I imagine they go rather quickly.” Ambrose put his hands in his pockets. “If you need to fly out and secure one…”

Eli’s hands went cold. For some reason, the idea of flying out, of leaving the team, petrified him. “No, no.” He flashed Ambrose a reassuring grin and waved a hand. “Really, I didn’t find anything that great.”

“Oh.” Ambrose nodded, his shoulders relaxing. “Good. I mean—I hope you find something. Soon. When you want, I mean.” He gave a small smile and looked down at the floor. “Would you like to go on the boat?”

“What?” Eli took another look at Ambrose and realized what was off. Though it was lunchtime, he wasn’t in his usual garb—un-buttoned lab coat, half-made sandwich in hand, pensive frown on his face. Today, he was dressed in a linen shirt, and had a metal case swinging slightly from his fingers.

“The boat,” Ambrose repeated, gesturing to the window. “I need to activate some icefall, and I thought you might be interested in seeing how it works. Since you like science.”

Eli was interested in seeing it. And definitely only because he liked…science.

“Sure, if it’s safe.” Eli stood and stretched. “For a moment, I thought you were just blowing off lab work for the afternoon.”

“That’s what I told him to do!” Sherry’s voice called from downstairs. Ambrose rolled his eyes.

“Sherry—“

“Take the boat out for as long as you want!”

Ambrose turned towards the basement door. “I’ll be back in an hour—“

“I’ll lock you out of the lab if you are!”

Ambrose sighed. “Perhaps two hours, then. If you’re ready…”

Eli plucked at his own flannel collar. “Ready? No, I’ll melt if I wear this on the boat. Let me change first.”

“There might be something in my closet you can use.” Ambrose grinned. “Unless you want to borrow a hawaiian shirt from Banneker?”

“I don’t need to get thrown off the boat today.” Eli jogged towards the steps. “Be right down.”

Eli found himself back in Ambrose’s room, working hard on not looking at the bed in the corner as he flipped through hangers in the closet. As he suspected, most of his options here involved slim white button-downs that he would wreck if he tried to fit into. But as he flicked through the fabric, his fingers brushed against silk, and he smiled when he pulled a black tuxedo into the light.

At first glance, it was just as he remembered it. Geometric patterns appearing and disappearing across the fabric as the midday light struck it. Rows and rows of beading down the lapels, all toned in shades of cool charcoal and glinting obsidian. He gently ran his fingers along the beads, feeling the facets that varied across each row, watching the light catch each of them in different ways.

Eli’s smile faded as he inspected the piece further. Half a row of beads had gone missing up by the collar, while several loose threads hung from the sleeve. The buttons on the sleeve were tarnished, the cloth at the edges lackluster. In a word, it was tired, and Eli wondered how he hadn’t noticed it, any of it, at the gala.

He found it both sad and painfully endearing.

As footsteps echoed down the hall, Eli quickly returned the tuxedo and stepped away from the closet.

“Find anything?” Ambrose leaned against the doorframe.

“Nah.” Eli glanced down at his flannel. “Mom always said I’ve got terrible height for basketball and great shoulders for rugby.” He started un-buttoning the flannel to reveal a t-shirt underneath. “Judging by your shirts, you’d be the vaulting pole.”

Ambrose stared at the motion of Eli’s hands for a moment, then cleared his throat and looked up. “Don’t you mean the pole vaulter?”

Eli shrugged off the flannel. “Nope. Just the pole.” He lightly slapped Ambrose’s arm as he moved past him into the hallway. “Come on, Captain Beake. Lead the way.”