Mara was waiting.
She didn't offer a grand welcome or ask about the blood on their boots when they finally pushed through the villa doors. Instead, she simply slid a steaming ceramic cup across the kitchen table before Valerica had even fully taken her seat. It was the seventh version.
Valerica wrapped both hands around the warm clay. She held it with the quiet, grounding reverence she reserved for things she was truly assessing—feeling the exact temperature against her palms, the specific, comforting weight of it after five days of holding nothing but lethal magic.
She took a slow sip.
When she finally set the cup down, the harsh lines of exhaustion around her eyes had softened into something remarkably human.
"The ratio is perfect," Valerica murmured into the quiet kitchen. "The temperature curve is just slightly short. It needs exactly thirty seconds longer on the second steep."
