The Fool doesn't know yet the magnitude of what he's offering and asking. A few others from Keeliai do now, and even them Devin doesn't call friends aloud. It's not that he doesn't consider them to be, more or less, but the vampire has isolated himself so much for the past six or seven decades that he's not sure what friendship is supposed to look like any longer.

But the Fool is right about all of those things, and if that's the bar of what friendship means (for him or objectively, it doesn't really matter), he can't duck out of this with a lie. It's fitting, he thinks, that this festival is about knots; it has certainly gotten him tangled up.

There may as well be a chasm between them, despite being right in front of each other. Slowly, almost hesitatingly, Devin takes the white cord from the Fool and holds it carefully. "I wasn't aware that added up to being a friend," Devin replies quietly, looking down at the knot. The statement is uncharacteristically honest, absent any edge though the tension hasn't ebbed from his shoulders.