"Really! Ra'am says, agreeing with her assessment, "I've seen Magi do some most distasteful things to acquire vis and knowledge. Although, I will say you get more than knowledge out of your adventures," he says fixing her with a disapproving fatherly stare. "Then again, it is the peculiarity of your House that Magi of your founder's line are difficult to come by, so I guess it's understandable. Did you know my majordomo has fathered two gifted children with other Maga?" His tone resumes to the academic nature that is his hallmark.
Her demeanor sobers, and Azura nods in agreement. "It's true. It's a blood lineage and that's difficult to maintain. Magae Merceris are expected to procreate early and often; I've come under scrutiny within my House for mothering so infrequently. My first moon blood was a dozen years ago and so far I've only birthed twice, but it's not like I'm not trying. It's also why I've never married; I have a Hermetic imperative to follow any leads that might help produce more Gifted Mercere, but it would be adultery if I were married." She then leans down to Gerald and whispers, "Remind me to find out who Ra'am's majordomo is so he and I can get better acquainted later tonight. You can hide out elsewhere if it makes you uncomfortable, or you can watch if you like."
(1) Fair enough. I went back and realized that I hadn't described it at all, and actually had been thinking of something more like a podium than a bookstand. So, new (first) description:
The Bookstand of Hespera in Cersei's lab is made of several dozen grapevine cuttings, which are twined around each other in the center like a thick-laid (twisted) rope. Six of these vines extend out from the bottom crown knot to form the legs which it walks on. The top of this column flattens out into a carrick mat.
An extra vine extends out from the top, this coils around the ink pot, quill and magnifying glass when being used for notes. When not in such use, this vine wags back and forth like an excited tail.
Instead of a drawer opening, the carrick mat/top untwisted in the center, and the book was swallowed into the central column, making the Bookstand look a bit like a snake that's just swallowed something big.
(2) Again, my bad. I forgot that Ra'am had arrived just after that scene, not before. However, that just means that he had no reason to suspect it would be in the bookstand in the first place, so his dialogue doesn't need to be fixed.
"Well, I didn't exactly have free reign of the place, you understand. I do know that they seem to use our wine for their Midsummer Feast, and that we didn't deliver last year. They were rather put out by it, and that was when I decided I was unlikely to achieve my goals while passively sitting in their prison. I left about nine months after that."
...and with that, ladies and gentleman, I believe we have done everything that needs to be done before the Council Meeting. While Peregrine has not outlined the specifics of their end of the contract, it seems like we want to renegotiate that anyway.
Ra'am is trapped on the Phoenix side for another day (was brought from Friday evening to Thursday morning). He'll have ample time to query grapevines, warders and or any servants that he can get to come over to the Phoenix side (asking the librarians to fetch one, and then have the last one interviewed send the next one to interview) to try and determine if the dwarves sent something last year, and what the exact terms of their side of the contract were...
~screeches to a halt~ Dammit. I still have the timeline screwed up. I thought I had sent Ra'am from Friday evening to Friday morning. It looks like the mixup is that I had the Team 1 exploring the sanctums on both Thursday and Friday.
Gah. Okay. I think we can ret'con to say that EVERYTHING happens on Thursday, thanks to the neat antics of Cygna and Hiems in the library!
So the order of events is....
Thursday, March 14th, the next morning, Cygna, Amos, and Viscaria scout out possible sanctum/laboratory locations, starting with Cersei's (as it was she who had gathered the vis from the Vintners and had done Cijara's marvelous and world-famous wine, and it's believed that clues, or better yet, notes, on how she had done what would be found there).
Azura Merceris arrives, and is directed to Hiem's Tower. Some Deus Ex Machina happens, and Ra'am's timeline meets up with the party. Hiems, Azura and Ra'am join Cygna and Viscaria in scouting out the labs. Amos gets sick and disappears into the background with an allergy reaction.
They finish investigating the labs shortly after lunch, and proceed to the library. After some miscommunication, Hiems and Cygna depart.
Thursday afternoon, Cygna goes to talk to Marguerite about gathering their Vis, as she has volunteered to take that duty. That is also (later in the day) when she went to the kitchen to try to make arrangements to use the oven and bake some tarts for the meeting that Jaime had called for Friday.
The merchant Abdul al-Faisal arrives at the covenant (as he does once a quarter).
Ra'am ex Bonisagus also arrives, along with his family and entourage. Ra'am gets sent back to the morning by some Deus Ex Machina, but his split timelines resolve themselves by dinner time.
Hiems spends all Thursday afternoon in the remains of Salamandrus's tower, which he has claimed as his own, basically clearing it out, exploring, brooding, et cetera. Later that evening, Viscaria stops off at Hiems Tower to survey necessary repairs, as she has Terram-Fu and Architecture-Fu.
Later that night, Cygna attempts to harvest vis from the grapevine. She garners 3 vis. Viscaria explores her lab. Etienne and Azura hook up.
Friday morning, March 15, Cygna went back to the kitchen. Viscaria discovers that one of her prison-mates, Ursula, longs to be a shield grog -- provided she's given a dwarven hammer.
Friday afternoon, there will be a council meeting before the Sabbath starts.
Saturday, March 16, 1213 - A group of the new covenfolk go out to seek the refugees that have been reported to be camping to the south of Cijara.
Feel free to tweak this to your satisfication, but I really think this whole mess should just be thought of as "the first week of Spring." Micromanaging the amount of time available, when we'll shortly be working on the entire rest of the season, seems pointless.
Agreed. But since I'm trapped in the machine, I thought I'd take every opportunity to ferret out the dwarven contract, if it's ferret-outable. 
I'm pretty sure Peregrine meant for you to have the details without him needing to actually figure them out.