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The hour that followed blurred at the edges in a way I wasn't used to letting happen. We worked through the vegetables, then a tray of something involving more garlic than any dish reasonably needed, then a pot Liora wouldn't let either of us near because apparently we'd already ruined the last two things we'd touched.

"You didn't ruin anything," I said. "You said the garlic was fine."

"I said it was fine for a battlefield. Not for Mira's dinner table."

"Those seem like the same standard."

"They are not the same standard."

Elira, arms folded and watching from the doorway with the satisfaction of someone who'd successfully avoided cleanup duty, added nothing useful except a second and third cup pressed into my free hand the moment one ran dry.

My knife work slowed. I reached for a stack of plates on my way past the table and misjudged the distance by a hand's width, catching the edge of the counter with my hip hard enough to rattle the whole stack.

"Careful," Liora said, not looking up from the pot.

Every time my cup emptied, one of them filled it again without asking, and every time I told myself I'd stop after this one, this one turned into another one before the sentence finished forming in my head.

"You're softer when you drink," Elira said, watching me over the top of her own cup.

"I'm not soft."

"You just laughed at Liora's joke about the onions."

"It was mildly amusing."

"You laughed with your whole face."

I didn't have a response to that, mostly because she wasn't wrong, and admitting she wasn't wrong felt like giving something away.

Liora set the last tray on the counter to cool and leaned against the edge of it, arms folded, studying me with the kind of patient attention I usually only got from people deciding whether I needed watching. This felt different. Warmer.

"So," she said. "How's the house?"

"Fine."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the answer I have."

Elira snorted into her cup. "She's gotten better at deflecting since she moved in. Used to just go quiet."

"I'm still capable of going quiet."

"We know. You're choosing not to right now."

That was true, and I wasn't entirely sure when I'd stopped noticing myself do it. Liora tilted her head, considering me the way she considered a knot in a rope, working out where to start pulling.

"And the men?"

Heat crawled up my neck before I'd even decided how to answer, and I busied myself with the knife I no longer had anything left to cut.

Elira's eyebrows went up so fast I heard the motion. "There it is."

"There's nothing."

"Your face says otherwise."

"My face is doing what my face does."