Mycroft breathes out a single humorless laugh, the faint force of the exhalation somehow propelling him further back into his armchair. The statement rings so deeply, horribly true that that single reaction is all that's left to him.

“I always thought myself someone who could get used to nothing,” he says. There's a long moment of quiet then, of him working over memories and elsewheres. Eventually he remembers his tea, and drinks some more of it, and then he goes back to the first part of Ilde's reply.

“I'd recommend staying inside this week,” he says, his affect illegible.