Europe misses him when she least expects it.
It is not, to her surprise, when making her treacle. She doesn't have to do it for many days, Threedice making extra without a word to either fulgarine, and by the time she is home and needing to brew alone she has become accustomed to less perfect constructions.
It is not when summoning her vast retinue to complete errands. There are people enough to deliver messages and purchase ingredients and go to the knavery, and while it would be more convenient to have a single person do all her errands, she cannot stomach the idea of taking a new factotum for the first months.
It is not even when Threnody arrives on her doorstep, cross and still be-wigged, and demands to become her factotum, of a sort, so they might work together. This, she would concede, is quite gratifying, even while she must watch the girl pine for the boy who disappeared to places which Europe can only guess; she would not do so aloud. Guessing would only upset them both.
It is only in the quiet, still darkness that she allows herself to miss him. She misses the boy that he has been, unexpectedly loyal and brave and terribly stupid. She misses the boy that he is, still loyal and strong and all stretched at the seams with learning he never intended. She especially misses the man he will become, who sometimes was present in a hint of an eyebrow or jaw or a crack of voice. A loyal, faithful man, continuously astounded with her and loving her better than anyone in the world. She misses the idea of his touch upon her skin, of half-considered hopes for a future with titles granted and many more lessons taught.
She wonders if missing is something he can feel the way he felt the threwd when they coursed together. Even if he can, he does not seek her, because he is loyal and she told him no.
She misses him, and hates herself for it.
