He had been eating his meals in his room until approximately four days ago, when he had begun appearing for the informal evening meal that Elara had established as the palace's actual dinner, as opposed to the formal state dinner that happened on occasion and that she had reduced in frequency to the bare minimum that protocol required. The informal meal was small — herself, Samuel, whoever happened to be present in the relevant wing at the relevant hour, which recently had included Fen and occasionally Demerti and twice had included an elderly noble named Lord Faras who had been visiting on administrative business and had been too hungry to maintain the fiction that he did not want to eat.
Tonight it included Mahir.
