Caelum had kept a record. Not a written one. He wasn't careless enough for that. But he kept one in his head the way he kept everything, in neat rows, dated, cross-referenced against what came before it.
He had a complete picture of Lena, built on small observations.
The tea was the first thing he noticed. Three months into her service, the taste had changed in a way that was difficult to name.
Just different in the way that something is different when something has been added to it that wasn't there before.
He had set the cup down and looked at it for a moment and then picked it up and finished it, because he was Curious.
It took him a full year to understand what it was. But he didn't care, nor did he ever stop taking the dose of poison. The doses were consistent at first, but soon they began to appear even in his food.
Yet he never raised his voice. He simply consumed them for reasons unknown, letting her continue whatever she was doing.
