I’d seen those smiles before. On my own damn face.

But the others came barreling in from the sitting room, Cassian kissing Elain’s cheek in greeting before he nearly lifted her out of the way to get to the dining table. Amren came next, giving my sister a nod, her ruby necklace sparkling in the faelights speckled throughout the garlands in the hall. Then Mor, with a smacking kiss for either cheek. Then Rhys, shaking his head at Cassian, who began helping himself to the platters Nuala and Cerridwen winnowed in. As Elain lived here, my mate gave her only a smile of greeting before taking up his seat at Cassian’s right.

Azriel emerged from the sitting room, a glass of wine in hand and wings tucked back to reveal his fine, yet simple black jacket and pants.

I felt, more than saw, my sister go still as he approached. Her throat bobbed.

“Are you just going to hold that chicken all night?” Cassian asked me from the table.

Scowling, I stomped toward him, plunking the platter onto the wooden surface. “I spat in it,” I said sweetly.

“Makes it all the more delicious,” Cassian crooned, smiling right back. Rhys snickered, drinking deeply from his wine.

But I strode to my seat—nestled between Amren and Mor—in time to see Elain say to Azriel, “Hello.”

Az said nothing.

No, he just moved toward her.

Mor tensed beside me.

But Azriel only took Elain’s heavy dish of potatoes from her hands, his voice soft as night as he said, “Sit. I’ll take care of it.”

Elain’s hands remained in midair, as if the ghost of the dish remained between them. With a blink, she lowered them, and noticed her apron. “I—I’ll be right back,” she murmured, and hurried down the hall before I could explain that no one cared if she showed up to dinner covered in flour and that she should just sit.

Azriel set the potatoes in the center of the table, Cassian diving right in. Or he tried to.

One moment, his hand was spearing toward the serving spoon. The next, it was stopped, Azriel’s scarred fingers wrapped around his wrist. “Wait,” Azriel said, nothing but command in his voice.

Mor gaped wide enough that I was certain the half-chewed green beans in her mouth were going to tumble onto her plate. Amren just smirked over the rim of her wineglass.

Cassian gawked at him. “Wait for what? Gravy?”

Azriel didn’t let go. “Wait until everyone is seated before eating.”

“Pig,” Mor supplied.

Cassian gave a pointed look to the plate of green beans, chicken, bread, and ham already half eaten on Mor’s plate. But he relaxed his hand, leaning back in his chair. “I never knew you were a stickler for manners, Az.”

Azriel only released Cassian’s hand, and stared at his wineglass.

Elain swept in, apron gone and hair rebraided. “Please don’t wait on my account,” she said, taking the seat at the head of the table.

Cassian glared at Azriel. Az pointedly ignored him.

But Cassian waited until Elain had filled her plate before he took another scoop of anything. As did the others.

I met Rhys’s stare across the table. What was that about?

Rhys sliced into his glazed ham in smooth, skilled strokes. It had nothing to do with Cassian.

Oh?

Rhys took a bite, gesturing with his knife for me to eat. Let’s just say it hit a little close to home. At my beat of confusion, he added, There are some scars when it comes to how his mother was treated. Many scars.

His mother, who had been a servant—near-slave—when he was born. And afterward. None of us bother to wait for everyone to sit, least of all Cassian.

It can strike at odd times.

I did my best not to look toward the shadowsinger. I see.

Turning to Amren, I studied her plate. Small portions of everything. “Still getting used to it?”

Amren grunted, rolling around her roasted, honeyed carrots. “Blood tastes better.”

Mor and Cassian choked.

“And it didn’t take so much time to consume,” Amren groused, lifting the teensiest scrap of roast chicken to her red-painted lips.

Small, slow meals for Amren. The first normal meal she’d eaten after returning—a bowl of lentil soup—had made her vomit for an hour. So it had been a gradual adjustment. She still couldn’t dive into a meal the way the rest of us were prone to. Whether it was wholly physical or perhaps some sort of personal adjustment period, none of us knew.

“And then there are the other unpleasant results of eating,” Amren went on, slicing her carrots into tiny slivers.

Azriel and Cassian swapped a glance, then both seemed to find their plates very interesting. Even as smiles tugged on their faces.

Elain asked, “What sort of results?”

“Don’t answer that,” Rhys said smoothly, pointing to Amren with his fork.

Amren hissed at him, her dark hair swaying like a curtain of liquid night, “Do you know what an inconvenience it is to need to find a place to relieve myself everywhere I go?”

A fizzing noise came from Cassian’s side of the table, but I clamped my lips together. Mor gripped my knee beneath the table, her body shaking with the effort of keeping her laugh reined in.

Rhys drawled to Amren, “Shall we start building public toilets for you throughout Velaris, Amren?”

“I mean it, Rhysand,” Amren snapped. I didn’t dare meet Mor’s stare. Or Cassian’s. One look and I’d completely dissolve. Amren waved a hand down at herself. “I should have selected a male form. At least you can whip it out and go wherever you like without having to worry about spilling on—”

Cassian lost it. Then Mor. Then me. And even Az, chuckling faintly.

“You really don’t know how to pee?” Mor roared. “After all this time?”

Amren seethed. “I’ve seen animals—”

“Tell me you know how a toilet works,” Cassian burst out, slapping a broad hand on the table. “Tell me you know that much.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth, as if it would push the laugh back in. Across the table, Rhys’s eyes were brighter than stars, his mouth a quivering line as he tried and failed to remain serious.

“I know how to sit on a toilet,” Amren growled.

Mor opened her mouth, laughter dancing on her face, but Elain asked, “Could you have done it? Decided to take a male form?”

The question cut through the laughter, an arrow fired between us.

Amren studied my sister, Elain’s cheeks red from our unfiltered talk at the table. “Yes,” she said simply. “Before, in my other form, I was neither. I simply was.”

“Then why did you pick this body?” Elain asked, the faelight of the chandelier catching in the ripples of her golden-brown braid.

“I was more drawn to the female form,” Amren answered simply. “I thought it was more symmetrical. It pleased me.”

Mor frowned down at her own form, ogling her considerable assets. “True.”

Cassian snickered.

Elain asked, “And once you were in this body, you couldn’t change?”

Amren’s eyes narrowed slightly. I straightened, glancing between them. Unusual, yes, for Elain to be so vocal, but she’d been improving. Most days, she was lucid—perhaps quiet and prone to melancholy, but aware.