( her exhalation breathes out the tension in her shoulders and under his hand, and she curls her fingers into his sleeve, crumpling it in a tight grip. )

You caught me completely off-guard, with the phylactery. I needed to be somewhere else, I didn't know how to speak to you yet.

( an offer: )

If you can't tell me all of something. At least that there is something. As much as you can tell me. That I'm braced, that I know we'll be able to talk about it eventually, so I can trust you. I know there'll be things, but - I don't have to be that ignorant.

( it self-evidently did not help. )