At the end of the first dance, he relinquished Natesa to Priscilla with a bow, and started for the refreshment table. He’d scarcely gone three steps before his hand was caught.

“Come,” said his cousin Nova. “I claim you for the next dance!”

“Ah, do you?” He laughed, and allowed himself to be led back onto the floor. “Then let us hope the band pities me and produces a less spirited number!”

Alas, his wish had not reached the ears of the band leader, for the next dance was something akin to a jig, requiring intricate footwork which he learned from step to step by the simple expedient of observing Nova and reproducing her movement.

He’d done the same thing many times in the past, of course—a person of melant’i would naturally take care to acquire the movements of a variety of dances, so that he might do his proper duty as a guest; however, no one but a scholar of the form could hope to know the intricacies of all possible dances. A quick eye and a flair for mimicry were therefore skills that a young person who wished to move without offense through Solcintra’s party season would do well to acquire.

Having survived the jig unbloodied, Pat Rin bowed to his fair partner, handed her off to his Uncle Daav, and turned, setting his sights on a glass of wine and perhaps more discussion of solar arrays with Andy Mack, who he could see speaking with Clonak to the left of the refreshment table.

This time, he was claimed by a smiling Villy who led him back out onto the floor with something very like a skip in his step. At least, Pat Rin thought, the gods were at last kind: It was a square dance, with he and Villy facing off as sides one and two, with Shan and Priscilla taking up the third side and the fourth.