She did not knock.
Knocking was for people who were asking permission to enter and Elara was not asking permission for anything in this palace anymore and had not been asking permission for anything in this palace for a considerable amount of time and was certainly not going to start now in this specific corridor outside this specific door.
She pushed it open.
Isareth was at her table.
Of course she was. Isareth was always at her table in the mornings — tea, correspondence, the composed and careful management of a day that had been organized before it began because Isareth did not permit her days to be unorganized, did not permit anything in her sphere to be unorganized, had built an entire life around the management of things that had the potential to become unmanageable.
She looked up when Elara entered.
