She smoothed her expression.
"I am truly grateful to Her Majesty," she said, each word placed down with the deliberate care of someone navigating stones across a river, "for teaching me proper manners."
The silence that followed had a particular quality.
Heena nodded, slowly, the way someone nods when the answer they received was technically correct and both people in the room know it was extracted under duress.
"Of course," she said warmly. "Of course."
She let the moment breathe — just a moment, just long enough to let Seraphina think, perhaps, that the hard part was over.
Then:
"So." Heena's expression didn't change, but something in her eyes sharpened by a degree that had no name attached to it. "What nonsense—" a small, almost apologetic pause, "—I 'mean', what 'work' is it, exactly, that brings you to my palace in the middle of the night?"
---
Seraphina breathed in through her nose.
