Tatiana’s laugh reached through the tangle of his thoughts; so did Cerise’s little smile, and the gold rustle of Sish’s wings.
His smile twisted again, inexplicably. Something about the thought of her at fourteen, going on about miraan. It wasn’t something he’d’ve thought about, but now he could picture it, and he couldn’t seem to stop picturing it.
Yes, Cerise said, a little too quickly.
He glanced over sharply, but he said nothing. He felt a funny lurch and twist in his stomach. What was wrong with him? It was a damned awkward reunion, and it wasn’t as if she had a problem with the stuff; it wasn’t as if she were actually his –
Tatiana took a glass, the liquid inside lapping milky pale against the bulb, and passed it to Cerise. “Date palm wine, I am told; Felix says it is something of a national beverage. Anatole?”
“No, thank you,” he heard himself say, smiling, before he’d decided to say anything at all.
Her dark eyebrows were raised, but she was still smiling. “Your health,” she said slowly, elegantly, as if sorry she had not considered it; “of course.”
He inclined his head. He really did need a drink; a drink would’ve helped him, he felt sure, with all of this. So what the hell was he doing?
Again, that expression: her eyes moved from his face to Cerise’s, and then narrowed slightly with what he thought was concern. For her? From - him?
But she was smiling again, a spark of good-natured amusement in her dark eyes at Ellie, though that concern still prickled at the edges, one dark brow twitching at I think. “I see,” she said.
Again, he wanted to say something, anything. Eleanor is quite well, he wanted to insist – or so Diana had told him – he scraped at the edges of his mind, scrambled to find something to say of her. Bugs, he thought, with the faint unpleasant tickle of a memory, a grasshopper jumping against glass, a sick churning in an unfamiliar stomach. Faces he didn’t know. He curled his toes into his sandals, worried that if he spoke, he’d only make things worse.
But Cerise had gone on, and now there was an expression of surprise on Tatiana’s soft face. “The team – oh, you must mean – inter-kingdom dueling! Diana did say you were still quite enamored of the lawn, in her last letter.” There was a small furrow in her brow.
“Cerise just made Brunnhold’s varsity team,” he was blurting out – again – before he could seem to help himself. “I had the chance to watch her practice on the three. She’ll be dueling at the Thul’amat Exhibition, first thing in Hamis; if you and Felix have the chance…”
Tatiana’s perceptive caprise probed curiously deeper into Cerise’s field. “We should be able to find the time,” she said.
She paused.
“You really are Maria’s daughter,” she said, smiling a little sadly. “Forgive me. We should find Mother and Felix, but – Cerise, Anatole, how should I say…” Her lips pressed together for a moment, then came apart. “Cerise, your grandmother is in… delicate health, and she has borne through a great deal of grief. Perhaps it would be best to avoid mention of your dueling pastime to Mother, if only for tonight.”
Her voice was very low, and there was still a trace of a smile about her lips, and a pleading look in her eye. She looked at Cerise, not him; he blinked.