Lucavion did not reach for the pen.
Isolde had built her sentence so that refusal would look like abandonment and acceptance would look like surrender. Lucavion had spent enough years around people who built sentences that way to feel the frame before he stepped into it. Join, or leave Elara alone with her. The offer left no third door.
So he stopped, and looked at what the choice actually was.
A few minutes ago he had set this form down because joining merely to hover near Elara and Varen would have been supervision dressed up as protection. He had not changed his mind about that. A novel had made him nervous, and nervousness gave him no right to stand at anyone's shoulder.
This was different.
