Elysia was the first one to recover.
Not fully, because no one in the room was ever going to be fully normal again after hearing that the Celestian queen had suggested separating Sarisa from Aliyah like it was a matter of furniture placement.
But Elysia at least found her voice before the rest of them.
Her eyes narrowed, silver and sharp in the low light. "Your mother was serious?" she asked quietly. "What did you answer, Sarisa?"
Sarisa was still standing near the bedpost, her hand wrapped so tightly around the carved wood that her knuckles had gone pale.
The fury had not left her. It had just settled into something colder and more dangerous.
For one second, Lara thought she might refuse to answer. Then Sarisa exhaled through her nose and said, with the kind of grim dignity that somehow made it even better, "I called her a heartless bitch."
Elysia stared at her.
Then, hand to her chest like she had just received the greatest gift of the season, she said, "That's my girl. Wow. Love that."
Malvoria made a delighted, scandalized noise. "You did?"
Sarisa lifted one shoulder. "She slapped me."
The room changed.
Lara's head snapped around so fast the blanket nearly fell off her shoulders. "She what?"
It came out rougher, more violent, than she intended. Elysia went still. Malvoria's expression flattened into something demonic and immediate. Even from the doorway, the air seemed to get hotter.
Sarisa looked at them all like she was suddenly regretting having answered any part of this honestly. "It's not important."
"It is extremely important," Lara said.
Sarisa's jaw tightened. "Lara."
"No." Lara crossed the room before anyone could stop her and reached for Sarisa's face with hands that were suddenly far gentler than the fury in her voice. "No. Let me see."
Sarisa should have refused. She looked like she wanted to. But she stood still, and when Lara tilted her chin toward the lamp, there it was.
The faint shadowing at one cheek. A mark half-hidden by time, powder, and sheer force of royal posture.
The sight of it made something black and murderous bloom in Lara's chest.
"She hit you."
Sarisa rolled her eyes, which would have been more effective if she had not looked tired enough to break Lara's heart all over again. "Yes. We've established that."
Behind them, Malvoria said, very calmly, "I'm going to kill her."
Elysia reached out and caught her wrist without even looking. "Not tonight."
"Counterpoint," Malvoria said, "tonight feels perfect."
Lara was only half listening. Her thumb brushed the place where the queen's hand had landed, careful enough not to press. Sarisa's breath caught, but she did not pull away. That made it somehow worse.
"All this because she wants control," Sarisa said quietly. "Not order. Not peace. Control. And if I won't bend enough, she will try to bend Aliyah instead."
Lara lowered her hand, though every instinct in her wanted to keep touching until the mark and the memory and the whole damned carriage ride disappeared.
"She won't," she said.
Sarisa gave her a tired look. "You say that as if she hasn't already started."
That was true. The queen had moved beyond subtlety. That thought sat in the center of the room like a loaded weapon.
Elysia rose from the chair arm and crossed to them both, gentler now. "Then we stop her."
Malvoria nodded at once, all humor burned away. "Yes."
Sarisa let out a breath that shook on the way out. "You say that as though it's simple."
"No," Elysia said. "I say it because it's necessary."
For a little while after that, the room softened into talk. Not easy talk. Not hopeful, exactly. But practical in the way that pain sometimes demanded.
Sarisa told them more of the carriage ride, her mother's icy reasoning, the way the conversation had spiraled until the slap.
Malvoria paced while listening, muttering increasingly inventive curses in three languages. Elysia sat on the edge of Lara's bed and began building a list in her head out loud because she did that when she was angry enough to be useful.
"We need to get ahead of the queen's narrative," she said. "Not react to it. If she is already planting ideas about Aliyah's future, then she means to use legitimacy and stability as weapons. Again."
Raveth, who had quietly appeared at some point and was now leaning in the doorway with a goblet and the expression of a woman enjoying righteous fury far too much, nodded once.
"Then we use bloodline against her too."
Veylira was with her, quieter, colder, a knife laid flat on a table. "And the child."
At that, all four of them glanced toward Lara.
Neris.
Lara rubbed a hand over her face. "I know."
"Do you?" Malvoria asked. "Because right now you look like someone who got struck by five disasters and is pretending the sixth might be manageable."
"That's because it is my current situation."
Sarisa's mouth twitched despite everything. It was tiny, but Lara saw it, and the sight nearly undid her more than tears had.
"I don't know what to do about him yet," Lara admitted. "I barely know how to talk to him without sounding like an idiot."
"You sound like an idiot to all children," Malvoria said.
"That's not true."
"Aliyah literally once asked if you had a brain injury."
"That was one time."
"It was four."
Elysia sighed, though there was the edge of a smile on her mouth. "You don't have to know everything tonight. None of us do. But Neris is here, Aliyah is here, Sarisa is here, and the queen is not in this castle. That is enough for one evening."
The room went quiet at that.
Because it was late. Because the adrenaline had begun to thin. Because even fury could not hold itself at full height forever without shaking apart.
Outside the windows, night had settled properly over Malvoria's castle. The halls beyond Lara's room had gone hushed. Somewhere in the distance a clock chimed.
Sarisa looked toward the door, toward the dark corridor beyond, and for the first time since arriving she seemed to remember that she had snuck across realms in the middle of the night.
"I should go back," she said.
"No," Lara said at once.
Sarisa looked at her.
Lara took one step closer, then another, until the room and everyone in it blurred at the edges and there was only her. Her hair still half-loose from anger.
The mark on her cheek. The stubborn set of her mouth. The exhaustion she wore like armor.
"It's too late," Lara said more quietly. "You're not going back to that palace tonight."
Malvoria cleared her throat and raised one elegant hand. "On that point, I am actually useful."
Everyone looked at her.
She crossed her arms and gave Sarisa a look equal parts fond and exasperated. "I'll let her stay here tonight."
Sarisa blinked.
Then Malvoria's eyes slid meaningfully to Lara's ripped shirt, to the way Sarisa was still standing much too close, to the obvious ache hanging between them like a second atmosphere.
"But," Malvoria said, with the solemn gravity of a queen issuing law, "please don't ruin my sheets. Please use the magic condoms."