Chapter 24: A Sparrow on the Sill

At the feast a month later, there were thirteen places set at the long table, and one of them stayed empty.

It was my mother's, at my father's right hand, with her plate and her cup laid out.

The ember in its wire cradle sat beside the cup and gave off a small steady warmth.

Nobody had asked for that.

Wynne had carried it up from the Vault herself, on the first morning, and set it down without a word.

I sat at the head of the table now, because my father had asked me to.

He had put the dark circlet in my hands before the whole court, and had taken the chair beside my mother's, and had not said a speech.

He ate with his sleeves pushed up.

Down the table, Thessaly sat in her stable clothes.

There was a fresh bruise on her wrist where a sun-horse had shouldered her, and she had stopped hiding it.

She passed the bread to the sister of Dusk, who took it without looking, and then said thank you to the table.

It was a small thing, and I saw every sister see it.

The sister of Noon had come in late, and sat at the bottom, and said to me before she sat, "I'm not sorry yet."

"I know," I said. "Sit down anyway."

She sat, and she ate, and she did not look at me.

That was honest, and I did not ask for more than that.

Wynne sat on my left with the Dawn on her wrist, because she had asked me for it in the spring and I had given it.

She had her hair cut short, and her nails were growing in.

"You're staring," she said.

"You're my sister."

"You've been doing it all night."

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