[Before she answers, she lets the music wash over her - not just what she's humming, but the fullness of it, the quartet or quintet or full orchestra, at some places, particularly House Venture; the memory of the music, the feeling of it in her bones. The scent of sweat and perfumed nobility, of fine food, of expensive fabrics. Knives in backs.]

[She never stops dancing. Never falters a step.]

It's a dance of nobility. The upper class, in my world as it used to be. The ones that were considered really human. The most formal, though there were only a few dances - they didn't let skaa dance, at least not in public. A courtship dance. I . . .

Sazed told me it's slower than other dances to give the partners time to speak. You can make alliances in between the steps, he said. Or you can . . . just dance.