Shey ducks with her spoon halfway to her mouth when Scorpia leans over her to fight Drom away from the stew. She glances at me, and moves her own bowl onto her lap.

“Corvus,” she says, trying to speak above the clamor of the others. “This is delightful. Where did you get the—hey!” Her mouth drops open in shock as Scorpia scoops a potato off her plate, and she abandons the attempt at conversation in favor of defending her food.

The familiar commotion almost makes me smile. I didn’t realize until now that this is the first time we’ve eaten dinner together since my return to the family… and also the very first Kaiser family dinner without Momma. My beginnings of a smile dissolve at that, and I stare down at my almost-empty bowl, my chest suddenly hollow. Though Pol’s seat is the most visible difference, Momma’s absence hangs above us like a storm cloud.

Now that the thought’s occurred to me, it’s impossible to sit at this table and not think of her teaching me how to cook at this very stove, smacking away thieving hands with her spoon and giving me those rare, valuable nods of approval when I made something to her liking. Momma rarely smiled, but when she did, it was usually during times like those. Dinners like this one, when we were all together. When our family was whole.

I wonder what she would think if she could see us now: Scorpia sitting in her chair, an outsider among us, celebrating before our job is done while our brother rests in the enemy’s hands. She would be furious. Worse—she would be disappointed. I wish that thought didn’t still make me ache.

Something hits me in the face and yanks me out of my thoughts. My head jerks to the side, and I raise my hand to my cheek just before the mystery object drops to the table. I consider the still-steaming potato, and then slowly turn in the direction it came from. Lyre has both hands to her mouth in shock, and Drom is grinning.

“No brooding at the dinner table,” she proclaims, hefting another potato in her spoon as a threat. I shake my head and finish my bowl, refusing to rise to the bait and start what would no doubt escalate into an all-out food fight.

By the end of dinner, even Shey is smiling and laughing about it all. When Scorpia slings an arm around her shoulder, she leans into her without a moment’s hesitation.

I can’t deny that it rankles me. This outsider—this Gaian, of all things—waltzes into our family and seems to fit right in within a matter of days. Meanwhile, I’m shoved to the outskirts. I’ve mended some of the wounds between us, but I’m still trying to figure out my place here… if I have one.