"Um, just a quick question. Is the middle of the couch made of hot lava? Because if you two sit any further apart, you're both going to slide straight onto the floor."
Cherion's nervous voice cut through the heavy silence of the room, but neither woman so much as blinked. The chaotic garden path was long gone, replaced by the suffocatingly formal walls of Zarius's private study.
After the midair magic explosion, the group had been promptly marched indoors to prevent a full-blown diplomatic crisis in the garden.
Marielle merely gave a small, irritated twitch of her jaw, her hand resuming its aggressive, rhythmic tapping against her knee. She remained stubbornly pressed against the far-left armrest. At the exact opposite end of the long velvet cushions, Iryna sat with flawless, textbook grace, her spine perfectly straight and a pristine, entirely polite smile plastered on her face as if she were completely innocent of the destruction outside.
