Dinner was twenty-six people.
His mother had added two chairs when Vael confirmed Lyr's presence and had added four more when the remaining members of the seventh class who were still in Valdenmoor asked to attend and two more when Dael arrived from the archive with three of the pattern students in tow and the specific expression of someone who had been in the middle of a significant documentation session and had been reminded that dinner existed.
Twenty-six people.
The extended table running the length of the kitchen and into the doorway.
His mother had made enough food.
She always made enough.
The dinner ran the way significant dinners ran — not formally, not with an agenda, with the specific gravity of a gathering where the people present understood that what was being shared was worth sharing slowly.
Vael and Lyr sat at the same end of the table.
He had not arranged this.
His mother had.
