"Regis, if I tell someone they can start whenever they're ready, do you think they ought to at least let me finish saying it?"
Reading the first line of Dahlia's letter, Regis moved the one he had finished for Marzana out from under his elbow and settled more comfortably at the desk in his study. 'You lost, didn't you?'
A girl at practice had worked up the courage to ask Dahlia for a bout. She had been so nervous about making the first move that Dahlia told her to take her time. Apparently, that was all the encouragement she needed. Dahlia had barely gotten the word 'ready' out when a wooden sword tapped her on the elbow.
"I gave her the point, of course. I just wish you could've heard the way the story got shorter every time she told it. By the time we sat down to eat, all that was left was 'I beat Dahlia.'"
