"It's not real," Benedict says first, as much for his own benefit as for Byerly's, but that doesn't make it any easier to be surrounded thus.

"...I was moved in here for the winter," he says into the pocket formed by his arms over his knees, not looking at Byerly-- as glad as he is that the ambassador is here, he's equally mortified by it. "When I got sick. The window made it too cold to live in the other one."