Raphael had been talking for two hours.
Everything he said was precise of the knowledge of someone who had navigated the Seraphim Court for long enough to know exactly which pieces of information were the difference between surviving it and not.
Eve sat across from him in the study with a notepad she'd stopped writing on twenty minutes in because she couldn't write fast enough and had started just listening instead. Damon was beside her, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed and his eyes tracking between Raphael's face and the middle distance the way he did when he was memorizing something.
"The Court has four physical territories," Raphael said. "The outer halls....public access, neutral ground, where faction representatives move freely. The inner chambers....restricted, invitation only, where the real conversations happen. The throne room, which you won't enter until the formal presentation. And the lower levels." He paused. "Stay out of the lower levels."
