Which got Malcolm tittering too until Monica turned the corner with her face hidden in her hands.
“I’d let him paddle me,” Libba put in, if only to immediately silence her brother.
Whether or not he had assumed the status of their new, disapproving parental figure, Julian Harcourt was, in fact, awaiting them at the entrance to Starling’s Rest, arms crossed and face unamused as they swayed and stumbled their way back up the drive.
“There’s food in the dining room,” he said, stepping aside to usher them in. “Soak some of that up before you go to sleep.”
“Oh, Mr. Harcourt,” Monica said, pink as a peony. “Are you cross?”
He only sighed in response, patting her on the shoulder as he waved her inside.
Rhys was at the table, stabbing a boiled egg with a fork he was wielding like a skewer, and glanced up at them with a glower as they filed in, falling one at a time on the basket of bread and the platters of meat and eggs.
Only Errol hesitated, sighing at the spread.
“Still don’t eat meat?” Malcolm asked curiously, stuffing a sausage in his mouth. “Shame.”
“There’s bread and cheese, Errol,” Ruby said, already making a second plate next to her own. “And an egg, if you like?”
“No egg,” he said, grimacing at the one Rhys was brutalizing.
“Where is Elias?” Hattie asked, finding a chair and falling into it sidesaddle as she pulled a bun across the table and tore it in half.
No one seemed to know, a series of shrugs going around the table.
“Did you find Miss Persephone’s?” Libba asked Rhys, leaning closer to observe the carnage he was delivering on that egg and then sprinkling some salt onto it. “Or better, Miss Persephone herself?”
“It was closed,” he ground out, tossing his fork away in evident disgust now that someone had been thoughtful to his egg. “And she’s likely still hanging upside down in the cave underneath it, plotting.”
“If she were a bat,” Monica said thoughtfully, “wouldn’t she be awake and open at night instead of the other way ’round?”
“Yes,” said Errol.
“Be silent,” said Rhys.
“Persephone…” Ruby was mulling, absently cutting her cheese into little chunks. “That’s so familiar.”
“She was the little Traveller girl who also did illusions with Rhys at the summer exhibitions, wasn’t she?” Malcolm said, raising his eyebrows. “They had a falling out, remember? But we didn’t call her ‘Persephone.’ I believe she went by—”
“Seph!” Monica and Libba exclaimed in unison, both looking delighted as Rhys melted further into his chair.
“I’m going to bed,” he announced, flinging himself from the table and stalking away.
“My, my,” Ruby observed, watching him go. “Someone’s harried.”
Hattie realized she was falling asleep mid-mastication, bread still held aloft between her molars, and blinked sleepily at her fellow wards. “Did I eat enough?” she asked, swallowing with some effort and reaching across the table for one of the pre-poured glasses of fruit juice. “I’m so very tired.”
“One sausage link,” Malcolm decided, “and two cubes of cheese. And you can go.”
“Oh, all right,” Hattie said, frowning as she accepted her sentence on a small, white plate. “All right.”
She forced it down and stood, pleased that Monica decided to walk with her to the girls’ wing, and wondered if she could even be bothered to get out of her dress before falling into bed. She said as much to Monica, who shook her own head, tugging at her collar with a sigh.
“So many layers,” she bemoaned. “If only I could snap my fingers and be bare, in nothing but a nightrail.”
“Bare in,” Hattie repeated with a sleepy smile. “Baron.”
“Hm?” said Monica.
