That evening, Theora let Cylea and Mymesia do most of the talking with their parents about the tea party, but she felt grateful that Cylea skimmed over her interaction with Lady De Katsein. Perhaps she would go into more details in private with her mother later, but for now, her cousins were kindly trying to distract Theora from the new threat over her head, and the upcoming selections. Instead, they talked a long time about the dresses and jewelry the ladies wore and other topics of conversation they'd heard from nearby tables, which Theora had missed. She hadn't realized her cousins had been gathering this much information, nor taken note of so many details; she felt like she had just sat there and let the information fly above her head while waiting for the event to be over. Their fathe
