Stephanie's steely resolve completely shattered at that, though she remained rather still. She gripped her cane so hard that the metal began to bend slightly as all colour drained from her face. She forced herself to set her expression, not really hearing the other words he was saying.

"How? I saw your body in the station. The police made me identify you." She wanted to defiantly meet his gaze, but she couldn't quite. There was a hardness in his expression that she couldn't match. She'd only known him personally for a short time, but she'd been raised with stories of him all her life. She idolized him.

When he wasn't around, she could look back and see his flaws. She moved on and became a strong and independent young woman, but how he was here, somehow and she felt like she was the girl who first arrived in New York again. Alistaire would probably handle this better, she realized, grimly, he'd known Sebastian for far longer and had more exposure to the bizarre carnival that were the Hellfire Club's machinations.

She just resolved, that she would not cry. She wouldn't give him the ... but why was she thinking that way? He was her father. She should be happy to see him again, and she was, she really was, but she knew that this would mean the end of her hitherto near-total independence.