Esther spat out her water.
The water went everywhere.
Across Esther's plate, across the tablecloth, across the silver of her knife and fork, in a fine spray that caught the candlelight like a handful of thrown glass. A servant by the wall flinched. Another took half a step forward and then, wisely, stopped.
For a moment, no one at the table moved.
Five faces were turned toward the far end of it. Five expressions, and not one of them was the expression of a person who had expected to hear what they had just heard.
Meera sat in the middle of all of it with her gloved hands folded beneath her chin, smiling.
Hermione moved first.
She snatched her napkin from her lap, leaned across, and pressed it to Esther's mouth and chin with a briskness that was only a little too rough, as though wiping her sister's face fast enough might also wipe away the last five seconds.
"I'm sorry," Esther managed, muffled beneath the linen. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't…it went down the wrong—"
