She blinked.
"Oh, what am I— what am I even saying."
An awkward smile. She turned her face aside, the specific motion of a woman who has said something she's evicting from the record.
Marta arrived.
The old woman entered with the timing of someone who has been managing this family long enough to know when intervention via refreshments is required — a tray, tea, a plate of butter cookies that were the good ones, the ones kept for actual guests.
She set it on the low table.
Looked at the room.
At her mistress's expression. At Viktor's expression. At Rihana near the door.
Said nothing. The wisdom of forty years of domestic service was legible in that specific, diplomatic silence.
"Please," she said. "Have something."
Eliantra took a cookie without looking at it.
