He knew that he was, in part, accountable for whatever punishment Gellert had sorted out. It was his responsibility to keep Gellert within reasonable bounds, and when he ought to have been making sure of that, he'd been far too busy being grateful that Gellert was alive-- and keeping himself from acting impulsively. He had known, still knew, that logical fallacies abounded when it came to tying his daughter's rebellious tendencies to the timing of the attempt on Gellert's life. That did not mean, however, that no link existed.
Leaning toward her, Albus rested a hand atop her wrist. The great tragedy was that Albus did care for her like family. Although that meant he cared for her more than most, it also meant being held to a higher standard. A standard with more perilous costs. The idea that no one was expendable was a pleasant fantasy, but one they could not afford to indulge. And there was a cost there, too. Albus meant it, however, when he took to waxing on about how how governance began and ended with service to the governed. Cassandra, however, he could trust more than his own flesh, which was both surprising and not.
"Right you are," he agreed. He followed her suit a moment later, fitting his lips around the end of the mouthpiece before turning to the bedrock of British conversation: the weather. "The heat of the summer seems to have broken. Autumn will be a welcome change. I'm not sure if I want it to hurry or to take its time." And by then, he was hardly talking about just the weather anymore. Change was a natural part of life, as was loss, he had to remind himself. He had become spoilt, perhaps, grown complacent with his own longevity, grown entirely too accustomed to the mental construction Kastra had become in his mind. The penalty for such errors was steep.
"I find fall always makes me nostalgic for long hair," he mentioned, his voice slipping toward something a little more wistful.