Bastien flips through the book. It's too quick to be checking for damage. More of a fond welcome back to the pages. Then he sighs. It doesn't actually sound exasperated, and the glance he turns back toward the horse is already very fond.

"Antiva."

His pause briefly threatens to make that the whole explanation.

"They are not all good at cards. This man owed more than he could pay to me and to another fellow—he was trying to make the money he owed someone else off of me, you know how it goes. He said I could have the horse instead. And I said," with a self-effacing deepening of his accent, "I don't want ze horse! I barely want ze money. And the other fellow, Clifford Hayden, he said he wanted the horse. But I know him, and I have seen him kick a dog minding its own business in the street. So I wanted the horse after all."

The horse bites him. Bastien doesn't flinch, but he does aim a second look over his shoulder, this time stern.