"It is your writing. I should hope every detail and scene is one you stand behind." It's a little jab at whatever heinous edits the Talamasca made him make, that is the joke. He watches Daniel head to the front, fingers curling, debating the idea of vanishing. Daniel's smugness should be answered by that, and yet he finds himself pleased by it. That Daniel finds goading his returned presence a prize.

Twink's got it down bad for grandpa, a boy nearby thinks. Armand resists the urge to pierce the boy's mind in senseless irritation before the takes a seat to watch the reading.

He ends up on the line, despite his better sense. For a few moments he considers going to the bookshop's little cafe and waiting to see if Daniel would join him when he was done, a truncated form of the chase before. No, he finds he wants to see what Daniel writes this time. The playacting is meaningless noise, camouflage, but the note means something.

Which is why he places the book on Daniel's table when it's his turn. Some were disappointed it wasn't a more daring, intense or sexier scene read. Armand's big brown eyes make it look like he is so genuinely sorry about that. Really.