He looks back, eyes huge and round and blue. Minuscule adjustments in the sizes of his pupils, drawn small now with effort, are all that make him look less opaque than a trapped animal. It's a hell of a poker face, or it could be if weariness and hurt and defeat hadn't made themselves far too clear by now.

"Just the cloak. I can't fly wearing it." He'd had a pin that he was pretty sure he'd taken from Aaron, but it had vanished days ago, and even Julien's ridiculous eyesight, expanded even farther now that his eyes are so enormous, hadn't helped him to find it. Anyway even with the pin, the cloak had flapped like a flag in a high wind and got unmanageable.

Julien turns his head - with his neck held coiled like this the motion looks almost owl-like - to face away. "I hate you," he says, and in the same breath, "I missed you."