The Grand Dining Hall of the Empress of Tides was a spectacle of crystal chandeliers and velvet drapes, designed to make the passengers forget they were floating over a dark, abyssal ocean. A clockwork orchestra—brass automatons holding violins and cellos—played a flawless, soulless waltz on a raised dais.
Revas stared at his plate with profound disdain.
"What is this?" he asked, poking the tiny, artistic smear of brown paste with a silver fork.
"It's truffle pâté with a reduction of fig," Mirabelle explained, cutting a piece of her pheasant. She looked radiant in the candlelight, the gold dress shimmering with every breath. "It's a delicacy."
"It's a smudge," Revas corrected. "I paid five thousand gold crowns for this suite, and they feed me a smudge. I should go down to the galley and eat the cook."
"Behave," Mirabelle kicked him gently under the table. "We are blending in. We are wealthy, eccentric aristocrats on a honeymoon."
