CHAPTER 9: The Boy at the Head of the Table

Arthur picked up the gold ring.
For a moment, Noah thought the old man might take it away, lock it back inside the world where it had come from, and send him home with nothing but shame.
Instead, Arthur stepped around the table and lowered himself to one knee before him.
The dining hall watched in complete silence.
“What is your name?” Arthur asked.
“Noah Bennett.”
Arthur's eyes softened in a way the room had not seen all evening.
“Noah Bennett,” he said, “your mother should have been welcomed here years ago.”
Noah's lip trembled, but he held himself still.
James took one step forward. He looked wrecked, guilty, and smaller than any boy in the room.
“Noah,” he said, “I didn't know everything.”
Arthur rose before the sentence could become an excuse.
“But you knew enough to ask,” he said.
James lowered his eyes.
Arthur placed the ring back into Noah's palm and closed the boy's fingers gently over it.
“This belongs to the truth now,” he said.
Then he turned to the servants near the wall.
“Bring another chair.”
Margaret went still.
Arthur looked at Noah, then at the empty place beside him.
“My grandson will sit with me.”
And for the first time that night, the boy who had been accused of coming too close to the table was invited to the head of it.