First-cousins once removed. Probably? That sounded right, though Maria wasn't quite sure how it worked. "Cousin Danielle. Do I just call you Danielle? You're way older than me, that'd be weird."

Maria shook her head, realizing she'd gotten distracted. She crossed her arms across her chest. "Also, you didn't answer my question. What's with that? You're like my parents' age, but you look really young, still. Why are you under guard? What did you do?"

Her words had a touch of apprehension to them, but not outright hostility—this whole adventure was mostly for her own curiosity, after all. All the same, though, the more Maria thought about it, the more worrying the age thing was. They had all kinds of un-aging creatures catalogued in their family's files, and none of them got it without some kind of cost.