A servant appeared briefly at the hall door, read the room in one glance, and disappeared again without entering.
It was Vanessa who broke it.
"Kraven," she said.
Her voice had recovered most of its composure. Most.
"You have truly reached the Arch Mage realm."
She paused.
"If the King were to know of this—"
She stopped mid-sentence, as if she had only just realized the full implication of what she was about to say. After a brief pause, she chose not to continue. Instead, she shifted the conversation smoothly, redirecting it away from the thought she had almost voiced.
"Anyway," she said, with a composure that was fully reassembled now. "You are very surprising. You have always been surprising, but this is—" She gestured slightly. "This is something else."
Even though she had stopped herself from continuing, the meaning had already reached the table before she stopped speaking.
Everyone present understood what the unfinished sentence contained.
