Lucian noticed things about River that nobody else noticed.
He noticed that she read the same scroll twice when the content upset her, the second reading a control mechanism, her brain demanding a re-run of the material so the emotional reaction could be managed and the managing was a system she'd built at six and refined at seven and perfected by nine.
He noticed that her appetite dropped on the anniversaries of things she never mentioned. That the quiet she carried on certain days was heavier than her normal quiet, and the heaviness had a calendar, and the calendar was invisible to everyone except a boy whose own calendar had the same kind of dates on it.
He noticed that she stood closer to Tristan in crowds and closer to Lucian in silence, and the distinction was instinctive rather than deliberate, the same way a person stands closer to fire when they want warmth and closer to stone when they want stability.
