Ezra came home just past eleven with blood on his knuckles and a story he clearly intended to minimize before Lucien had even gotten a good look at him.

"It's nothing," he said, shrugging out of his jacket in the entryway, wincing in a way that suggested it was, in fact, something.

"You're bleeding."

"Cosmetically."

"Ezra."

Something in the flatness of Lucien's voice must have carried more weight than either of them expected, because Ezra stopped trying to walk past him toward the guest room and stood still instead, allowing the examination he'd clearly been trying to avoid.

"The car from a few weeks ago came back," he admitted. "Different...