While he had been bracing himself for some sort of lecture - it was exactly the sort of his thing his mother or Claudia would have done if he had suddenly disappeared without giving them even the slightest idea as to where he was going - what he gets instead makes something flutter deep within his chest. Something soft and delicate, like butterfly wings - and he knows that feeling. Knows it so well that he doesn't even need to stop to think about what it might be.

"Mi dispiace, mia cara. I did not mean to worry you." Slipping past her as he speaks, out of the cold and into the warmth of the house. "It seems as if this place likes to misplace people. It had already done so once before."

But at least then it hadn't just been him and Malik out camping and hunting down salamanders.