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because she happened to be as pretty as Carola? She launched herself at Carola to claw that complacency right off her face.
    Carola instinctively threw up an arm to ward, and with the other hand, caught hold of Falisse’s hair, yanking viciously to throw Falisse off balance.
    Falisse screeched in pain and anger.
    Carola shrieked, “How dare you! How dare you!”
    The mingled screams echoed down the marble hall, reaching the duke in his scriptorium as he was giving his scribe last instructions.
    The duke, accustomed to decorum in his household, entered the formal dining room to discover one of his four hundred-year-old lyre-backed chairs turned over, the table linens all askew, dishes lying in pieces on the floor, with food scattered about the crane-patterned Bermundi rug. Expensive parrots flitted from drapes to furniture, squawking, as his daughter and niece-by-marriage rolled about, kicking and scratching.
    “What.” His voice was like a whiplash. “Is this?”
    The girls fell apart, Falisse weeping with rage and pain as she fingered her tender scalp where Carola had pulled out a huge chunk of her hair.
    “It is entirely Falisse’s fault, your grace,” came Tatia’s obsequious mouse squeak.
    The duke ignored Tatia as his gaze traveled from the lock of hair on the floor to Carola’s angry face and disordered appearance.
    “Carola. When you have restored yourself to order, you will attend me in my interview chamber.”
    The door snicked shut. Carola whirled to her feet, her voice shaking with rage as she turned on Falisse. There was no thought of how her lips shaped each word now. “I will deal with
you
later.”
    She had her explanation all worked out by the time she had changed her ripped gown and had her maid brush out and bind up her hair again in a fresh pink ribbon.
    The only person in the world she feared was her father, though he had never raised his voice or his hand. But he made his disapproval plain in ways that hurt much, much worse. Her palms were damp by the time the footman let her into the formal room where the duke dealt out judgment to those whose rank preserved them from the more public office on the ground floor.
    “Father,” Carola began, “permit me to explain—”
    “The spectacle I was forced to witness is not just risible but offensive.”
    She gulped, rigid with the effort it took not to exclaim at the unfairness. It was all Falisse’s fault!
    “It appears I erred in believing that you understood the rudiments of civilized behavior.”
    “But Father—”
    He pointed his fingers at the floor in the sharp gesture that once preceded the deliberate stepping on another’s shadow, but now meant
Shut your mouth
. It was as shocking as a slap. “A Definian never forsakes
melende
. Even in death.”
    Carola trembled, struggling to control her breathing.
    “A Definian exerts authority through choice of word and precision of tone.”
    Then the real blow came; the duke was irked, and wanted to teach his heir a lesson, but he also welcomed the prospect of postponing the tedium of introducing her to court, a place that had ceased to interest him almost twenty years ago. “We will defer this journey to Alsais until I am assured that you are able to conduct yourself in civilized company.”
    Carola could only curtsey and retire. Her first impulse was to return to Falisse and claw her face to ribbons, but Falisse would only shriek again.
    So. Whether her father postponed the journey a day or a year, Carola would still triumph, because she would devote every day she was stuck at home to demonstrating the perquisites of authority to Falisse, without raising her voice or touching her. With style, the outward form of
melende
.
    She smiled.

FOUR
     

O F W HITE L INEN AND I GNORANCE
     
    W

hen the collective age of any class reached sixteen, we all knew the Interview could come at any time. It was individual, and it determined the rest of your life. We all had hopes of being chosen as royal