Oh. With a grateful look to Dionisia, and Ari's pronouncement that she could get the salve, Zelda let go of her nervous grip on her scarf. She also stopped standing still; she stepped over to one of the other armchairs and perched on the arm of it, unwilling to properly sit but also unwilling to stand rigidly in waiting.

"It's like Konstantin and Nemo think I'm courting him to be spiteful," Zelda said. Now that she knew Ari wasn't going to haul her back home in front of Brannon, it was easier to share this. And - well, it wasn't as if Zelda had never acted out of spite, but she couldn't imagine going through all this work just to prove a point. "I don't know what Ros thinks, but I'm sure it's not good - and even if Dorian and Leonid and Katia have come around, it's not as if father listens to them."

She sighed. "And he doesn't chaperon me, ever. So he just hears from Kons and Nemo that I'm being willful, or whatever, even if all I did was look uncomfortable at a party, and I've been doing that my whole entire life," Zelda said; she was venting properly, now, and while she didn't know if her brothers had said such a thing to Brannon, she could only assume. "And I don't want to fight them, because then I'm just being more willful, even though - I never wanted to be a debutante, you have to understand that."

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   J. Alfred Darrow