Victoria called them to the table again on the second night.

Not pasta this time. Soup and bread. Ordinary bowls. Ordinary water. She set three places with the same deliberate precision she had used the morning after the explosion, and the heavy hints of the day still hung in the rooms like a low continuous tone. Elena sat in her usual chair with the thick residual heat of the afternoon’s claim still warm between her legs—Marcus had taken her in the study while Victoria was on her walk, quiet and absolute, the marks renewed, the ownership pressed back into her body under the temporary absence of the continuous pressure. The...