Jasmine's smile arrived a half-second after it should have. "Yes." She smoothed the edge of her expression carefully. "We should."
The look she turned on Seraphine after was harder to categorize. She stood there for a moment, hands folded in front of her, working something through internally before she spoke. "Doctor Sera." Her voice was polite, measured. "What do you like to eat?"
Seraphine glanced at her. "Call me Sera." She reached for the spoon on the tray. "And I'm not picky. Anything is fine."
She scooped up the first spoonful and held it out toward Marigold. "It's getting cold. Open up."
What happened next surprised everyone in the room, including Jasmine, who Seraphine suspected had been managing Marigold's eating habits long enough to have lost some hope about them. Marigold ate.
Not reluctantly, not with the drawn-out negotiation of a child who treats every bite like a concession. She just ate. Opened her mouth, chewed, swallowed, opened again.
