The guest wing had a long table nobody used for state dinners, which made it the right table for us.
Someone in the palace kitchens had decided that people who'd spent a day planting spines in three provinces needed food that could be eaten with one hand, and they were right. Flatbreads, grilled peppers, a pot of something with lamb that Cecilia claimed was too spicy and then ate three bowls of. Rose was back from the legal floor with ink on two fingers and an expression that meant she'd won something and wasn't going to tell us what until she'd finished winning it. Seraphina sat with her clock book closed beside her plate, which is how you know she's off duty. Rachel had her shoes off under the table. Reika sat where she could see both doors, as always, but she'd taken her jacket off, which almost never happens.
