By the time they reached the dining room, the castle was only just beginning to wake properly.
Morning light spilled through the tall arched windows in pale gold ribbons, catching on silver dishes and crystal glasses and the polished black stone of the table.
It was early enough that the room still felt soft around the edges, as if the day had not yet decided what kind of disaster it wanted to become.
No children yet. No Kaelith attempting to climb furniture. No Neris staring suspiciously at pastries. No Aliyah launching herself into Lara's side at full speed and demanding justice, snacks, or answers.
Just adults.
Which, Lara thought as she stepped inside beside Sarisa, was often worse.
Malvoria was already there, leaning back in her chair with one leg crossed over the other and a cup of dark coffee in hand, looking far too pleased with herself for someone who had spent the last month threatening to burn down a kingdom.
Elysia sat beside her in impeccable morning silk, serene as a saint and therefore deeply suspicious.
Raveth was halfway through a plate of meat and bread and looked exactly like a woman who believed breakfast should be violent.
Veylira, elegant and unreadable in deep violet, had a teacup poised near her mouth and eyes sharp enough to skin truths off bone.
The room went very quiet for half a second as Lara and Sarisa entered together.
Then Malvoria smiled.
It was the kind of smile that should have been outlawed by at least three realms.
"Well," she said lightly, "hi. Some people had a really good night."
Lara stopped walking.
Sarisa kept moving for exactly one step longer before she realized Lara had been hit by the full weight of Malvoria's greeting and paused too. The silence stretched. Somewhere outside, a bird sang with irritating innocence.
Elysia looked up from her tea and offered them both a smile so warm it could only mean she was also about to become a menace. "Good morning."
"That sounded judgmental," Lara muttered.
"No," Elysia said, too quickly. "That was kindness."
Raveth snorted into her cup.
Sarisa, who had somehow managed to become pale and pink at the same time, lifted her chin in a way that would have been very queenly if Lara had not spent the last night learning exactly how unqueenly she could become in private.
"It is morning," Sarisa said. "That much, at least, is accurate."
Malvoria looked delighted. "Look at her. She's pretending dignity survived."
"It did," Sarisa said, heading toward her seat.
"Did it?" Raveth asked. "Because Lara looks like someone chewed on her and then she thanked them."
Lara nearly walked straight back out of the room.
Instead she took the chair beside Sarisa with all the grim courage of a soldier marching into battle. "You are all terrible."
Veylira set down her teacup with delicate care. "True. But not wrong."
That earned a laugh from Elysia, who had apparently decided subtlety was for lesser women this morning. She waved to one of the waiting servants.
"More coffee. And food. Preferably enough to support the emotional labor of being witnessed like this."
Sarisa closed her eyes briefly, perhaps in prayer, perhaps in murder rehearsal.
Lara reached for the nearest cup and found it empty. Malvoria leaned over without being asked and poured her coffee with the maddening tenderness of a woman who intended to ruin her life but not before caffeine.
"Thanks," Lara said darkly.
Malvoria beamed. "Any time."
Breakfast began to arrive in waves. Bread still warm from the ovens. Spiced fruit. Eggs soft-scrambled with herbs.
Thick slices of roasted ham. Honey, butter, jam, little fried cakes dusted in sugar. Lara realized suddenly that she was starving. Again.
Apparently emotional devastation and being in love were both terrible for maintaining a normal appetite.
Sarisa, to Lara's quiet satisfaction, looked equally hungry even if she was trying to hide it behind posture.
Malvoria saw everything, of course.
"You know," she said, stirring her coffee, "I almost left a note on the door. Something tasteful. Maybe: Do not disturb, the exiled are finally getting some."
"Please don't ever use the word tasteful again," Lara said.
"I can and I will."
Sarisa reached for bread with a hand that was very nearly steady. "You are impossible."
Elysia smiled over the rim of her cup. "That's why she's charming."
"She is not charming," Raveth said.
"Thank you," Lara muttered.
"She's only tolerable because I'm related to her," Raveth finished.
"Ah," Lara said. "There it is."
Veylira's gaze moved, unhurried, from Lara to Sarisa and back again. Lara had the awful sensation of being assessed at a molecular level.
Veylira had always had that effect. She could make you feel ten years old and underdressed with one look.
"At least you both seem less miserable than yesterday," Veylira said.
Sarisa took a sip of tea. "The bar was very low."
"Still," Elysia said gently, and for a moment some of the teasing thinned into something softer, "I'm glad you came."
Sarisa looked down at her cup.
Lara, beside her, tried not to think too hard about that sentence. About what it had meant when Sarisa appeared in her room furious and trembling and asking first about Aliyah.
About what it had meant when she stayed. About what it meant now, with the morning light catching in her hair and the mark on her cheek entirely gone.
Malvoria, seeing emotion threaten to become real, immediately ruined it.
"So," she said brightly, "how many condoms are left?"
Sarisa choked.
Lara made a noise that was not fit for a breakfast table.
Raveth barked out a full laugh this time, while Elysia looked as though she was trying very hard to remain dignified and failing in a way that suited her.
Veylira did not even blink. "That is a revolting question."
"It is a practical one," Malvoria argued. "Inventory matters."
"You are not managing my sex life like it's a grain shortage," Lara snapped.
"Why not? You clearly consume at the same rate."
Sarisa set down her cup with great care. "I am begging all of you to remember I am still physically present."
"That is exactly why this is fun," Malvoria said.
Lara dragged a hand over her face. "I'm going back to the dungeon. It was calmer."
Sarisa's mouth twitched despite herself. Lara saw it and felt absurdly triumphant, as though earning one tiny smile from her at breakfast was somehow as important as surviving exile.
Raveth pointed her knife at Lara. "You should eat more."
"That sounded threatening."
"It was advice."
"Very unclear advice."
"Eat," Raveth repeated.
Lara obeyed, mostly because she valued her limbs. Sarisa did too, though with more elegance.
The room settled into a rhythm after that: cutlery against plates, little flares of conversation.
Malvoria making occasional remarks designed to test the limits of everyone's patience, Elysia editing those remarks only when they threatened to become truly catastrophic.
For a few minutes, it almost felt like a family breakfast.
A very dysfunctional, mildly criminal family breakfast, but still.
Then Malvoria, because she had no fear of peace, leaned one elbow on the table and looked at Sarisa with narrowed eyes. "You do realize your mother is probably tearing through your rooms right now."
Sarisa buttered a piece of bread with ominous precision. "Well..."
"She may notice you never returned to bed."
"Don't care."
Lara glanced sideways at her. "You really are angry."
Sarisa looked back at her, unblinking. "Lara, if she ever says that about Aliyah again, I may actually poison her ."
Malvoria's face lit up. "That's my girl."
Elysia sighed. "No poisoning before noon."
"That's your rule, not mine."
Veylira, who had been mostly silent for the last few minutes, finally set down her cup again. The sound was soft. Final. It made everyone else look at her.
Her gaze moved to Lara first.
Then to Sarisa.
Then back again.
Lara recognized that look. It was the look Veylira wore right before saying something either deeply wise or utterly unhinged, and sometimes it was both.
"You know," Veylira said, as calmly as if she were discussing weather, "Lara, you could just mate with Sarisa."