By the time I got back to the suite, my skin felt too tight.
I’d expected Mara to be waiting with questions about the statement. Instead, I walked into a fullscale crisis over a sock.
“It itches,” my son declared from the middle of the sitting room, one foot bare, one wearing the offending item. Arms crossed. Chin out. War.
“It’s cotton,” El said. “Cotton doesn’t itch. That’s illegal.”
“It itches,” he repeated. “It wants to bite me.”
Mara glared at the sock like it was the Council incarnate. “Then we burn it,” she said. “Problem solved.”
“We are not burning palace property,” Grace said from her post by the door. “Even if it’s rude knitwear.”
“Hi,” I said, because apparently no one had noticed me yet. “Did I miss the revolution?”
Four heads turned.
My son lit up. “Mama! The sock is
