#mikal

Mikal risks a peek over her shoulder. "Are those berries?"

"What? I don't know. It's all good stuff. Sugar and... stuff. Haven't made cookies since forever. They're puffy and stupid in Orlais."

"I used to make tarts with my uncle," Mikal says. "Everyone said it was a miracle he made any money, because he had a sweet tooth the size of a mountain and ate half his own stock before sunup."

"Tarts," Sera muses. "Good for pinching. Sticky down your sleeve, though."

"I didn't like making them for a long time after he died, until my cousin wanted them for her wedding. So they were wedding tarts, not his. I suppose that made it alright." Her eyes sting a bit just thinking of it. That, or some of the expensive Rivaini spices Sera's dumping in the bowl are tickling her nose.

"Wedding tarts," Sera says. "That's sense. Not for you but something better. You liked the taste better, yeah?"

Mikal laughs. "I couldn't choke down a sodding crumb. I was crying over the smell of the jam. My cousin had to pass them around."

A spoon gets shoved an inch from her nose, plastered in lumpy dough. "You'll taste it and tell me it's all wrong," Sera says. "Please."

Too sweet, Mikal thinks, but if you like sweet, it's perfect. She works a gluey raisin off her back teeth. "Er, very chewy."

"I frigging hate raisins," Sera says cheerfully. "But that's cookies."

"So who are they for?"

Sera dodges away to dump something else in the batter. The sun catches her hair through the wee back window and turns it all to soft spun gold. "Like you said. Wedding tarts. I don't know. Cookies. Inquisition cookies, I guess. Unless they laugh. Or snap."

"No one will laugh at you," says Mikal. "But you have to give me the last one."

"You can have the whole frigging lot for all I care."

"Just one. It's an old Jenny tradition." She ambles over to brush flour off Sera's nose, and pinch it the way her aunt used to do. "Worrywart."

I wonder how it works here, exactly.

I mean—I wonder at what point I would be overstaying my welcome.

From what I can tell, there are always several guests in the Pentarra house at any given time. How closely are they monitored? Who authorizes their stays?

Pentarra’s house is full of guards. The guards are not slaves, which makes sense, because they’re more likely to do their job if they’re paid. There are guards that stand at the gates and there are guards that stand at the door and there are guards that stand on either side of Pentarra’s table in the dining hall. And they’re armed.

Ruut Pentarra knows I’m here. I stick out, not being Twi’leki, and we have made eye contact in the dining hall a couple of times. Especially since Fannie’s mother’s table has been reinstated to its former place: the closest table to Pentarra’s on the right side of the hall.

Last year, it was the furthest table. Pennie Pentarra, who despises her family, had it moved.

Pennie Pentarra does not come to meals anymore.

Sometimes I sit with Fannie and her mom and sisters, and sometimes I sit with Mikal on the men’s side of the hall. In sitting with Mikal, I have sometimes found myself sitting with Vataash and Nabohri. They ignore me, which is probably for the best.

I’ve dropped a lot of names. I think most of Fannie’s family deserves their own posts, so I won’t analyze them all here. But…

Have you ever seen a sabacc deck with royal cards?

Here’s an easy picture for you: Ruut Pentarra is the King. Pennie Pentarra is the Queen. Vataash is the Jack, Nabohri is the Joker, and Mikal, I think, would be the Ace.

That’s the best way I can think to sum it up.