Glory was still adjusting to the rapid-fire nature of social interactions in the office. At home, conversations happened slowly, shared across the teacup-and-junk-mail-scattered surface of someone's kitchen table. Here, quick reflexes were required to catch bits and pieces of talk as they flew through the air above her head. She clutched the handle of her basket of muffins, whose supply was quickly dwindling, much to her domestic pleasure. She had an irrepressible urge to feed people, and doing so brought her great satisfaction.

She observed Max's flight from the kitchen with pity, and held the basket aloft so he could reach a muffin without having to jostle past too many people. It amused her that Waylon seemed to have taken a liking to some of the people in the office already, Lenya being one of them. He was never skittish around her, whereas Jaklo seemed to make the mutt uneasy for some reason.

Baron's conduct was slowly becoming normal to Glory's everyday routine. His almost excessive familiarity was similar to the intimate friendliness of the French-Creole people she shared a swamp with growing up, who called her "Little Miss Doctor" and kissed her hands. There was something slyly flirtatious in his manner that she adamantly and primly pretended not to notice at all. She smiled at him and gave a brief curtsy, the flowers in the brim of her hat nodding their cheerful heads, and she certainly did not blush.

Setting down her now empty basket (When had that happened?), she considered the office's resident vampire out of the corner of her eye, who cut a rather imposing figure even when seated at his desk. He looked considerably uncomfortable, which made him less intimidating. "Atlas," she ventured, her tone soft and polite, "why are you... Oh! I'm so sorry." She unclasped the silver chain around her neck from which hung a very small, very simple cross, and dropped it into her satchel, which she left in the kitchen before approaching him.

"I wanted to ask you something," she said, "If you have a moment before the meeting." 

One would think that all the travel she had done over the past few years would diminish her warm bayou southern accent, but it seemed to have only gotten more pronounced the farther she traveled from the stilt houses and shrimp boats of home. She spoke slowly here, so her coworkers could understand her.