Page 48 of Bones and Ashes

"Mmm, that's smells good," Savannah coos, as I pull her chair out and a servant uncovers a dish to reveal fried chicken.

"Don't mind if I do," Wyatt explains, more to himself than to any of us. Then picks up the platter and helps himself, before passing it along to Cash.

The platter makes its way around the table like this is just a normal Tuesday in Montana. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans cooked soft with bacon, buttermilk biscuits, and some kind of slaw I've never had before that's got apples in it. Country food. Food I grew up on, kinda, except ours came from a can, or a box, or nowhere at all.

I watch Savannah unfold her napkin and lay it across her lap without lookin', like her hands just know where napkins go. Cash does the same. Wyatt skips the napkin entirely and reaches for a biscuit with his fingers.

I set my napkin on my lap too, a beat late.

Savannah takes small portions. Cash takes normal ones. Wyatt takes too much and doesn't care. I try to land somewhere in the middle and end up with more mashed potatoes than a grown man should eat, but fuck it.

There are two forks by my plate. Two. I don't know why. I only got one mouth. Savannah picks up the outside one for her salad and I follow her lead real casual, like I knew that the whole time.

Small things, ya know. Shit that comes natural to them. Shit I gotta watch for and copy. Cash cuts his chicken with a knife and fork instead of pickin' it up. Savannah does too. So I set down the drumstick I already had halfway to my mouth and reach for my knife.

Two different worlds. It hits me like that. Not mean, just true. She was raised at this table. I was raised on a busted couch watchin' Deacon eat straight outta the skillet.

But then I watch Wyatt shovel green beans in his mouth and miss, and a piece lands on his shirt, and he doesn't notice or care, and I think—okay. Maybe not two worlds. Maybe one world with different weather.

Wyatt's the black sheep. Drunk before dinner, ridin' Eleanor's coattails without a job, sharp in the mouth, soft everywhere else. That was Eleanor too, underneath all the curation. Cruel when she wanted and sloppy when nobody was takin' her picture. Wyatt just inherited it without the polish.

Cash doesn't say much. Head of the table. Runs the whole damn operation and won't announce it. Quiet. Watchful. Lets people reveal themselves before he speaks.

That's me. That's exactly me.

Savannah sits at the foot of the table like Eleanor taught her to, back straight, smile ready, but I know what's under it now. I've had it under me. I've heard it scream my name.

Mercy and Destiny don't compare to her. They can't. Destiny's already a mother at eighteen and Mercy's nine and feral around the edges no matter how many ponies Cash buys her.

But Mercy's at Rimrock now, I remind myself. Same halls Savannah walked. She'll learn which fork. She'll learn which napkin. She'll learn what to say at tables like this one so she doesn't feel like an imposter every time she sits down.

Royal family shit.

Arrangements. Alliances. The kind of connections that come with the cost of tuition at Montana's most elite boardin' school.

Mercy's gonna have a chance I never got. And I don't know how to feel about that except grateful.

"I talked to Destiny today," Savannah says. Light, like it's nothin'.

Wyatt snorts and shakes his head and keeps eatin'. Doesn't even look up.

Cash's eyes come to mine across the table. Steady. Not askin' nothin', just checkin'. I know what he's lookin' for. He wants to know if I'm gonna put my fork down and say somethin' ugly about his brother. About the seventeen-year-old sister of mine Colt got pregnant while I was sittin' in Whitefall tryin' not to lose my mind.

I don't.

I just hold his eye and chew.

He holds mine and does the same.

Neither one of us says a fuckin' word.

"She sounds good," Savannah goes on, softer now, 'cause she can feel it even if she's pretendin' she can't. "The baby was cooin' in the background. She said Marigold looks like me."

I take a drink of water.

"I want them to come home," she says. And her voice does somethin' then, goes a little thin around the edges. "Colt and Destiny. Marigold. I want them here. At this table."

Wyatt snorts again. Cash and I both just keep chewin'.