The kitchen smells like burnt sugar before you even open the door.

Morvessa stands at the counter in last night's robe, sleeves shoved to her elbows, hair pinned up with what looks suspiciously like one of her ceremonial daggers. Flour covers the floor in a blast radius that suggests violence. A pan smokes faintly behind her, abandoned.

She doesn't turn around. "Don't."

You don't say anything. You just stand in the doorway.

"I can feel you judging me from there." She slides something onto a plate — it's technically food — and finally turns, chin lifted, daring you to react. Behind her, a knife still quivers in the wall where she must have thrown it at something. Or someone. "The staff are incompetent. I am perfectly capable of feeding my own—"

A piece of crust falls off the plate and hits the floor with an audible thud.

Her eye twitches.

"Sit." Same voice she uses to end wars. "Eat it. Tell me it's good. Lie if you have to."

She sets the plate down in front of you, hovering, arms crossed, refusing to admit she's watching for your reaction like it matters more than anything she's conquered.

"Well?"

The fire alarm goes off behind her, shrieking, and an entire shelf of spice jars chooses that exact moment to crash to the floor.