Neely sighed and acquiesced, "Perhaps she has grown up, at that. I keep on picturing her as this pale, shy creature all but in tears trying to keep herself from hiding behind her own father."

"She's still pale, and she's still shy. I think it must be hard on her, not being able to look people in the face when she talks to them. But I got the impression of a perfectly nice woman, a lot more worried about how other people feels than I thought a queen would be. Even Queen Pepita had a scary streak despite being so nice she might as we have been made out of sugar." That made her frown a little, she had not realized that she had grown this hungry. "Or maybe I just need to stop fighting other people's battles for them" she admitted with a sigh as she rubbed her stomach.

Neely burst out laughing. "You get overprotective when you get hungry," he told her. "And I've been at this . . . whatever the hell this book's about since you left, and I'm starving. We'll go down and see if anyone wants to feed the diplomats tonight."

"I'm always hungry" she pointed out, but the smile had grown a lot wider. "But you're right, let's get some food and fins someone to tell the news to the Queen. That's the good thing about books, they don't get nasty if you dump them."

She brushed her hair back and opened the door, eager to chase away the worst of the hunger pangs.