"I prefer tea to murder," he said with implacable calm as he took her by the elbow and guided her back to the chair she’d perched on nervously before.  The touch made her nerves settle and the prickles that had been running along her skin for months fell into silence.  She hadn’t even realized how much they’d bothered her until they were gone. Even her emotions calmed under his hand.  When he released her, she felt the absence at once and she braced against the return of all the pings and whispers of her fate but they remained dormant.  