“It’s not,” Nev said. “I’m not human. Now you know my secret.”
Nev wasn’t usually quippy like that. She looked tired, her bland expression more deliberately constructed than usual. It was interesting. “Did it turn out well,” asked Lovisa, “whatever it was?”
Nev hesitated. “Yes and no.”
“Oh,” said Lovisa, noticing a smear of sand stuck to some unknown sticky substance on Nev’s trousers. “Too bad. Were you on the beaches?”
“For a bit.”
“Did you hear any of the hubbub about the Monsean queen?”
“No.”
“Apparently she fell out of a ship today and drowned.”
“How sad,” said Nev.
Lovisa felt a small, unwilling smile forming on her face, from the pleasure of a conversationalist who was as good as she was at seeming indifferent. “Where’d you get a pass?”
“A professor.”
“Which professor?”
“Quona Varana.”
Of course. “Is Quona Varana the person who always keeps you out so late?” said Lovisa, unable to hide her curiosity.
Then, at the sound of footsteps on the stairs above, she deadened her expression. A couple of boys carrying papers and books clattered down into the foyer and gave Nev small, particular smiles. These were Mari Devret’s friends, rich, popular boys, probably coming from studying in Mari’s room. Their smiles weren’t friendly.
“Hello, Lovisa,” said one of them, a smirky boy named Pari Parnin. None of them greeted Nev.
“Move along, Pari,” said Lovisa, unimpressed.
The boys disappeared down a corridor. Nev chose that moment to move along too, turning for the stairs, not saying good night to Lovisa, who watched her go, wondering if Nev relaxed her shoulders once she’d entered her own room and closed the door on the world. Also wondering if she’d eaten anything in lieu of dinner. Did Nev keep a stash of food? Lovisa always kept food in her pockets. It made her feel prepared.
Two more boys came down the steps, greeted Lovisa, and left, this time without any unfriendly smiles. Ever since Nev had broken things off with Mari, a rumor had been circulating about Nev’s skills in bed. Her lack of skills, actually. Lovisa strongly doubted that Mari had started it, for he wasn’t the type to circulate cruel rumors that probably weren’t even true. Lovisa suspected Pari Parnin.
Regardless, it was what those boys’ smiles had been about earlier, when they’d seen Nev. The kind of smiles that say I hear you’re no fun.
Lovisa stared into space, her mind returning to matters of greater interest. Was her house in Flag Hill now full of grieving Monsean delegates? How was her mother, the Scholar, turning that to her advantage? How was her father, the Industrialist, counteracting her mother? When there were foreign delegates in the house, it was always interesting to watch for the secret, self-interested undercurrents in her parents’ outwardly gracious behavior.
Also, why had her father skipped dinner and her mother left class? Why had her mother been late? Was the stress of Ferla’s responsibilities as professor and president finally getting to her? A crack in the armor, deep enough for people outside the house to notice? If so, it would be the first such crack Lovisa had ever seen.
Was there a Graceling living in her house right now? If so, what colors were her eyes? What was her Grace? So few Gracelings passed through Winterkeep. People were talking recently about a Graceling woman living in Ledra who had the Grace of finding lost things, but Lovisa hadn’t met her.
Lovisa didn’t want a freezing, windy walk, nor did she want her mother’s company if her mother was under a lot of stress. She especially didn’t want the spying gold eyes of her mother’s fox. Blue foxes could live how they liked, bonded or unbonded; Sentient Animal Law protected their freedom to choose. Most foxes bonded to no one, choosing to remain independent, living in the wild or in fox sanctuaries where humans catered to them. But other foxes liked the companionship of bonding, or the feeling of usefulness, or the treats. In return for a cushy life in a private house, the fox was loyal, and, if its human had particular requests, obedient.
Of course Ferla Cavenda had wanted an obedient fox who could sneak around and speak to her and her alone. She’d visited fox sanctuaries for months before one had expressed an interest in her companionship. Then that fox had lived in the Cavenda house for almost a year, while Ferla doted on him with a sweetness that had obscurely alarmed nine-year-old Lovisa, for Ferla never showed that saccharine sweetness to her children. It had crawled with falseness. But it had worked. The fox had finally chosen to bond to Ferla. From that day forward, Lovisa had felt eyes on her back.
Despite the promise of those eyes, tonight Lovisa was curious. She could never help herself when she was curious.
Pushing up from her chair, she went to her bedroom for warm clothes, a coat, and her bag, schooling her face to look homesick. Lovisa would sleep at home tonight.
Chapter Seven
Lovisa’s night did not go as planned.
Most of the estates in the neighborhood of Flag Hill stood behind stone walls, with gates that were left open during the day and locked at night. The expectation was that an unannounced visitor like Lovisa would ring the bell at the Cavenda gate, then wait for a guard to come let her in. And of course, that was what she intended to do. But first, she found the unlit section of wall with the pokey rocks and used them to climb over.
Pokey rocks, she thought as she found purchase on one rock, then the next, hoisting herself up to the top of the wall. That was the name she and Mari Devret had given these rocks when they’d climbed them as children. Their feet had been smaller then, of course, more nimble, but Lovisa’s feet were still pretty small. And her skirts were in fact wide pants legs, her leather gloves good for gripping and wiping away snow, her shoes snug and flexible.
Once on her own grounds, she was careful to avoid the light from the wall lanterns and the house windows. If one of the guards caught her, it wouldn’t be a calamity, but it might make her mother start paying closer attention to what Lovisa did. The thick falling snow helped to obscure her. She hoped it would cover her footprints.
She circled the house. Her father’s library on the first floor was gently lit, as if he were sitting in thought with a cup of tea. Her mother’s study on the second floor was glowing with the kind of light that only came from silbercow lamps, a rich, golden warmth. Lovisa was hardly ever invited into her mother’s study, but what always hit her first was the smell of the silbercow lamps, deep and earthy, like summer soil. Silbercow oil was highly regulated by Sentient Animal Law and exorbitantly expensive, but Ferla wasn’t one to deprive herself.
Up at the top of the house, a dim light shone in an attic window at the back. Lovisa felt an anxious tug, wondering which of her brothers was up there tonight in Ferla’s attic room, and why. It was a customary feature in a Flag Hill house, a small room in the attic, far away from the front door, unreachable by intruders. Most people used it as a storage space for valuables, but Lovisa’s mother used it for discipline. It wasn’t a terrible room, in and of itself. It had a bed and desk, a rug, a book or two, a lamp. When Lovisa was little, Ferla might close her in there briefly with her homework, some crayons for drawing, a hot drink and extra blankets if the day was cold. “You need some time to yourself,” Ferla would say, clear and strict, “to think about what you’ve done.” It was lonely, but it was fine.