The knife clinked against the fine bone china, scraping as a stubborn piece of roast refused to be cut. Two pairs of eyes looked up, startled, but not a soul said anything to break the silence.

It had been this way for nearly a year now. Two well-kept, well dressed strangers sitting at opposite ends of a mahogany table built for fourteen, both sipping rich soups and eating the finest game birds in the Core. As the man finally severed the sliver of meat from its whole, a deep sigh passed through his lips. It was louder than usual.

“Is there something wrong?” a thin voice asked, trilling like the song of fragile birds. There was a faraway look in the woman’s eyes, and the man knew that she was spending a king’s ransom to cover the tear-tracks and the gray hairs that appeared soon after the children had left.

He swallowed. “No. Nothing’s wrong.” He swallowed again. They both knew it was a lie.

The room felt cold. Vaulted ceilings, plush chairs, even the most expensive panel-flooring to be had on all of Osiris. The temp regulator read: 76 degrees.

There were nights he could hear them. Light, happy voices that would run eagerly to the table, sometimes still discussing the fallacy of a schoolbook theory or a pretend battle against the Independent forces or the latest examination or recital. He looked across the table, seeing her melancholy face staring light years into the past. The maid had said she had been in their rooms again, fingering old texts and the faces of a few porcelain dolls in ballet poses. What he himself wouldn’t give to hear those voices again.

She had been happy. He willed himself to believe that. She had been happy; she had wanted to go. When the boy tried to tell him otherwise…

Silence reigned. Cold, unflinching silence. He remembered his words in the station. His eyes closed in shame every time he recalled them, which was more often now of late.

“It’s been almost a year,” she said, her red hair falling in front of her worry-worn face. “A whole year…