“Sit, Ser Voyne,” the Absolving Saint says, and pulls the chair out.

For a moment, she is confused, but then a rush of gratitude fills her. She sits. He tucks her chair in. He looks at Phosyne while he does it, as he traps the skinny woman between Voyne and the table so that escape becomes nearly impossible.

“Our Lady would have you both as her guests tonight,” the Absolving Saint says. He reaches out as if to touch Phosyne’s brow, then hesitates, glances to the door. He pulls his hand smoothly back. He leaves them.

The Loving Saint and the Warding Saint, too, are out of their seats, their chairs remaining empty as they drift between the tables, touch brows, shoulders, backs. They bow to whisper in ears. They fill plates, though nobody yet dares to eat.

“Don’t you see this is all wrong?” Phosyne whispers, glancing up at her, shivering. “This isn’t how people act.”

Before Ser Voyne can question her, or even parse what Phosyne has said, what little noise there was dies away completely.

It leaves only her Lady, speaking out in the yard to all that are gathered there.

“All this bounty, I give to you, who have suffered so terribly,” the Lady says, and though She does not shout and has no criers, Ser Voyne can hear it clear as a bell from where she sits, even with a wall and a hundred bodies between them. “I would mend you where you have broken, nurture you where you have been left to wither. You are my garden, and I shall tend you until you reach your fullest bloom. Eat, and be well.”

And seemingly as one beast, they all descend upon the food.

The great hall echoes not with talks or prayers or cheers, but with chewing, swallowing, gasping, sucking. Ser Voyne and Phosyne alone keep their hands still.

“Ser Voyne?”

She looks down at Phosyne, who is trembling again. Panic lights her eyes. “Let me go,” Phosyne begs. “Let me go, and I swear to you, I will go back to my tower, I will do my work, I will not impose on anybody. I won’t go back to the hole. But don’t keep me here.”

“No,” Ser Voyne says. “We must remain. We must eat. The Lady said—”

“What have they done to you?” Phosyne asks, and she is shaking. “You aren’t in there anymore. They’ve taken you.”

Ser Voyne blinks, frowns.

And then the Lady enters the great hall.

She is glory made flesh. Ser Voyne watches, breathless, as her Lady approaches, observing the desperate, thankful gorgings on either side of her. Below Her yellow paint, Her cheeks are full of high color, and then Her eyes are fixed on the two of them, and She smiles. Ser Voyne ducks her head, unable to withstand the glory of Her regard.

The Lady takes Her seat at Ser Voyne’s left.