Only not, perhaps, always — or not without softening influence. Oriane’s quick mind grasped another subtlety: that when she had arrived the night before, the house of Laendricourt had been by no means so chaotic. She had wandered its passages and halls largely in peace, without the disruptions of staircases wandering about and doors opening onto the wrong rooms — or tapestries growing bored of their general configurations and resolving themselves into new scenes entirely, as she now saw happening upon the wall of the dining-parlour. The difference was the light: yester eve there had been the Brightening, and now there was not.
Oriane’s musings released her long enough for her to remember her food, and she took a bite of scallops. They tasted of jugged hare.
Noting her look of surprise, N
