"Right," he says quietly, the corner of his mouth going up in another faint smile when her lips brush his jaw. The reminder of his absence sends a chill through him, one backed with a now-familiar kind of regret; that he hadn't known any of this, that he'd been so careless, that though he'd saved Alex from whatever lurked in the Rosenfeld basement, it hadn't kept her from other, sharper kinds of misfortunes in the days afterwards. "That makes sense."

He squeezes her hand, lets the pressure of it steady him. "It was probably Dawes who left the light on," he says. "It's not in Oculus's purview to...play housekeeper, such as it is, for Lethe delegates, and especially not in places the society doesn't even own. But you know Pammie." He leans down, kissing her again. "I wish it hadn't been a false hope for you that night."