Jack sat two steps below him. "That sounds expensive and miserable."
Pierce huffed a laugh. "Yeah." A pause. "Sorry about the charity technique thing."
"Okay," Jack said. Not instantly absolving, not punishing. Okay as in received.
They did not become best friends. They became, gradually, less useful as enemies. In a place like Westbridge, that counted as moral progress.
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Years later—after the Threshold Fund evening, after Jack had graduated from the academy with honors and a letter of recommendation from Dr. Mori that contained the word "inevitable" used approvingly—Jack returned once more in early winter as a guest. He was twenty-two then, studying at a conservatory in another city, freckles still visible if you knew where to look, sandy hair darker and shorter. He wore a coat over a forest-green sweater Eleanor had knitted the previous Christmas, cables climbing like measures.
Principal Harrison was retired but present, invited back for the fund's anniversary. His silver hair had gone fully white. The charcoal suit remained. Ms. Blake, still head of piano, still in black when the occasion asked for it, hugged Jack with the fierce brevity of teachers who refuse to become proprietorial about their students' adulthoods.