That would be my contribution to the state of Firenze.

Women wanting new frocks and the men in their lives cursing me because they did.

“Perhaps I should try a jeweled brassiere,” I mumbled, wondering if I could manage to pull one off without expiring of mortification.

“No, just be as you are because you are lovely,” Zosime said.

No, she was for saying as such.

“I hear Elpis returns,” Nyx changed the subject as I suspected she sensed the other was not entirely comfortable for me.

Which made her lovely.

Or lovelier than she already was.

“She does,” I confirmed. “Mars sent for her.”

This I had learned from Elpis’s secretary, not my husband.

“But I received a letter from her just yesterday,” I told them. “And in it was lovely news. For she shared that she and Farah had a reconciliation.”

Zosime murmured marvelous in Firenzii while Nyx smiled happily at me.

As for me, I was as delighted about this as I was that Elpis would return, even if I did not allow my mind to consider why Mars had sent for her.

They were close. There was great affection there.

This was all I told myself it was.

It felt selfish, being glad she was returning. Farah needed a motherly presence much more than I (and True did too).

But I was drowning in clans and tribes and invitations and there was some Firenz celebration upcoming that I knew naught about, but Elpis’s secretary repeatedly shared I should be planning something in regards to it at the palace.

And I could not ask my husband.

I also could not ask Nyx and Zosime, as they might wonder why I did not inquire after this from my husband.

So I had no idea what to do.

What I should not do was go yet again to Zosime to smell her daughter’s head and waste time I did not have for I should be at my desk or ordering flowers to be arranged (or some such).

But here I was, yet again, at Zosime’s, smelling her daughter’s head and being with my friends even if it did not make me feel better as I’d hoped it would.

One could say I needed a mother’s presence too, as, for all intents and purposes, I had lost mine as well.

I pushed that to the back of my mind, but when I did, all the rest I should be thinking came forward.

“I hate to say this, but I must go,” I announced. “There are things to do with Miet. Would you like to hold her?” I asked Nyx, bouncing the baby in my arms. “Or shall I give her back to her mama?”

“Me.” Nyx reached both hands out my way.

I rose and moved to her, feeling bereft as I transferred the precious bundle to Nyx, and watching Nyx coddle the baby, hoping my friend and her husband would start their family soon too.

After I did this, I turned to Zosime and queried, “Have you named her?”