We did generally like this scene, since it’s always fun to have Giuna and Tess teaming up. Its fatal flaw, however, was that it cut Donaia entirely out of the process of getting rid of Letilia at last — and she, more than either of them, really had a claim on that particular bit of vengeance.

* * *

Giuna had countless reasons to be glad she and her mother had laid matters to rest with Ren . . . but she would be lying if she pretended having Tess back wasn’t among them.

“I know you won’t be able to sew anything for me,” she said over tea. “You’ll be busy enough getting Ren properly clothed –”

“Properly clothed, pah! I’m half-tempted to give her to Grey wrapped in old sacking. I love my sister, but she couldn’t wait another month to get married?”

Giuna hid a smile in her teacup. “I’m hoping you can give me some suggestions to take to another seamstress. A far inferior seamstress,” she added hastily, when a mutinous light sparked in Tess’ eyes.

Tess’ reply was cut short by Colbrin’s failure to announce Letilia before she barged past him on a tide of self-righteous pique. “Duel this!” she proclaimed, hurling a sealed document onto the tea-table in front of Giuna.

The document bore the emerald-green seal of Prasinet, marked with nested squares. With a sense of foreboding, Giuna cracked it open and read the words inside.

“You must be joking,” she said to Letilia, taking refuge in Renata-style coolness. “You expect us to compensate you for the things you stole before you ran away?”

“I was still a member of this house,” Letilia sniffed, nose high. “It was my father’s cruel decision to strike me from the register that turned me claiming my share into theft. Her Charity has assured me I was within my rights. Therefore, you must compensate me for the property that gnat stole in Ganllech — or else return that property to me.”

The emphasis she laid on the latter sent a chill across Giuna’s skin. Did Letilia know the importance of what Ren had taken? Probably not; Cibrial wasn’t foolish enough to trust her regarding the medallions. But that Cibrial’s hand was behind this, Giuna had no doubt.

Fortunately, the wording of the writ gave Giuna all the defense she needed, and more.

“Her Charity has done you so many favors, Alta Letilia,” she mused, rolling the document into a scroll. “A place to live, the clothing you wear . . . even the services of her house duelist.”

“I have a better right to such things than the criminal you call cousin,” Letilia snapped.

Giuna feigned surprise. “But you don’t. Tess, what were you telling me earlier? About a Ganllechyn fellow — what was his name . . .”

Merry delight sparked in Tess’ eyes. “Rhuelt Glastyn.”

“Yes! Wonderful fellow; he bred a dog of his to ours. Have you met Lex Talionis, Alta Letilia?” Giuna fluttered one hand in the air. “Pardon me. Mistress Letilia.”

She took great satisfaction in seeing Letilia recoil.

“Alwyddian wolfhounds are bred for princes,” Giuna went on. “As such, Master Glastyn is often in and out of the Ganllechyn court. He’s a font of gossip. Tess was telling me about a great falling-out a few months ago, when Prince Maredd stripped his favorite mistress of the title he’d given her.”

Giuna held up the tightly-furled writ. “This entitles Alta Letilia to the restoration of her property or its equivalent value. Mistress Letilia has no such right. In fact, Mistress Letilia committed a crime when she claimed the right of a noble to have her honor defended in a duel. I wonder how much patience Era Destaelio will have when she learns how you’ve been deceiving her… This city has sucked all the marrow out of my cousin’s humiliation. They’ll be glad for new bones to gnaw upon.”

She didn’t give Letilia the chance to regroup. Standing, Giuna tossed the scroll to the table. “You’re fortunate that you brought this to me. Unlike Ren or my mother, I mostly pity you. If you agree to leave Nadežra, I’ll arrange money to see you on your way. I don’t care where you go; to Seteris like you always wanted, back to Ganllech, or off to Xake, it’s all the same to me. But you will be gone by week’s end, and we’ll never hear from you again . . . or Fulvet will hear from me.”

Letilia sputtered. “You — you’d prosecute me for the crime you shelter that liar from?”

“Ren is a registered member of House Traementis,” Giuna said. Her tiny flicker of sympathy over the curse destroying Letilia’s life in Ganllech died under the weight of the vicious pettiness Letilia had tormented the Traementis with, now and in the past. “And she is my dear cousin, who’s done more for this family in a year than you’ve done in your entire life. So, yes. I would. In a heartbeat.”

Tess stood, too. In the strongest Ganllechyn accent Giuna had ever heard from her, she said, “You might want to avoid Ganllech. The blood feuds of the princes are the stuff of legend.”

Cibrial could pull the fangs from Giuna’s threat with a few strokes of a pen, adopting Letilia into House Destaelio. But if she hadn’t already scribed Letilia, she wouldn’t now.

“You won’t find happiness here,” Giuna said. “This is your one chance to seek it somewhere else.”

Her former aunt never even said goodbye. She just stormed out. And Giuna, shoulders untensing with relief, gave Tess a grateful hug.