Ren's distress penetrates his excitement with long, cold fingers. He looks up, over the carafe, as the stream of steaming water pauses.

"Better than his grandma's. Well, that's quite a compliment." Better not to make a big deal of it, too. There will be another way to draw Ren close again. "What did you make of him, in general? It's weird that we've had two English speakers arrive, all of a sudden."