Then, with a promise to return, she excused herself briefly. Was her mother’s fox here or not? Moving through the edges of the party, she watched the occasional fox whiz past like a spinning leaf in a stream. There wasn’t much hope of recognizing a nose or an ear if none of them ever kept still.
Lovisa saw Nev in a corner, standing alone. Scanning the crowd, Lovisa saw someone else who’d spotted Nev in her corner: Nori Orfa, that northern boy, quick to smile, flirty, the one Lovisa didn’t trust. Nori began to move toward Nev.
Half out of her own need and half out of an unexamined impulse to interrupt Nori, Lovisa pushed through the crowd to Nev.
“Hi,” she said, bursting breathlessly into the space before the taller girl.
Nev looked down at Lovisa, not speaking, but conveying worlds with her contemptuous eyes. She wasn’t holding the fox kit anymore. Lovisa could see her shirt, black and high-collared, with long, thin ribbons in every color that wrapped around her torso and seemed knotted together at arbitrary locations. On someone else, it would’ve looked like a failed attempt to simulate current Ledra fashions. On Nev, with her high chin and her straight shoulders, her humorless mouth, it was exactly right. She looked like a queen.
“Come to pick on me?” said Nev. “Or do you people only do that when you have an audience?”
“Have you forgotten all the times I’ve picked on you when we were alone?” said Lovisa. “I’m hurt.”
“Ha, ha. What do you want, Lovisa?”
“Can you tell foxes apart?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed the one that belongs to my mother?”
“Not particularly,” she said. “When would I? I don’t exactly get invitations to your house.”
“Oh,” said Lovisa, disappointed. “Oh well.”
“Also,” said Nev, “why would I do you a favor?”
Lovisa hesitated, considering. Then she said, “For a complicated reason that includes punishing Pari Parnin.”
This was met with a brief silence. Then Nev spoke. “How old is your mother’s fox?”
Lovisa did a quick calculation. “Seven or eight, maybe?”
“Then it’s probably one of the ones who’s not flying around like it’s intent on tripping people. The manic ones are usually the young ones.”
“Oh. I haven’t seen any keeping still.”
“They’re less noticeable. They’re mostly either standing with their person, or watching the party from the edges of the stairs. Excuse me,” said Nev, slipping away. A moment later, Lovisa saw her joining Nori, the two of them grinning at each other in the shadow of an archway. When Nev grinned, it transformed her face, lighting her up with joy and mischief. It made Lovisa wonder if Nev ever kissed girls. It also made her feel sharply alone.
Whatever. Lovisa turned to examine the edge of the nearest staircase. Immediately she saw what Nev meant, for foxes crowded the spaces between the banisters, just like her little brothers did at home during dinner parties. One of them suddenly sprang to the floor from an alarming height—one Lovisa recognized, by her smallness and the bandage on her face. That was Nev’s fox, Little Guy. Lovisa could see her bolting between people’s feet toward Nev, and wondered if they were bonded yet. Tell her not to hook up with that rotten loser! Lovisa shouted at the fox, uselessly, of course.
Then a fox watching Lovisa from the steps caught her attention, and held it. She recognized that long-nosed profile, those perky ears. For a moment, the fox held her gaze with his flashing eyes. Then he stood and slunk away, but not before confirming what Lovisa now knew. Her mother’s fox was here.
* * *
—
When the fox who was bonded to Ferla Cavenda saw Lovisa glaring up at him on the staircase, he understood, instantly, what she was planning to do.
And now the entire calamity of what was likely to transpire was playing out in his mind, for he knew something Lovisa didn’t know: Ferla, who had one of her stress headaches, was planning to leave the party early and go home.
The fox had never before experienced the level of anxiety he’d been experiencing lately. It was too much. He could not keep everyone safe all by himself! And his siblings, all of whom were present at this party, were as useless as ever. All they wanted to do was play Trounce Each Other, with occasional forays into Catch the Falling Food. As if they were kits! They had no interest in helping him with any of his dilemmas. How could he foil Ferla’s plans?
He could delay her departure home, maybe. Distract her from her headache. Then he could try to be on hand to help Lovisa.
The fox set out to find Ferla, composing a lie about having snuck into the inner Keep, then having seen someone trying to break into the president’s office. That would delay her, while he came up with the next lie.
* * *
—
It was easy for Lovisa to convince Pari to leave the party.
“Come help me get my coat, Pari,” she said.
“Are you leaving?” he said with a small pout.
“Aren’t we both leaving?”
Outside, though, a light snow was falling, and he balked at the idea of going all the way to Flag Hill. “We live in the same dorm,” he said. “No one would know.”
She didn’t respond, just kissed and rubbed up against him. Then, when they reached a place where the footpath diverged, she turned toward a staircase that led away from the dorms.
“What are you doing?” he said. “It’s this way.”
“Shut up, Pari,” she said. “I have a better plan.”
“The dorm is right here.”
“If you want this,” she said, “then you’ll have to come back to my house.”
“But, why? It’s freezing out here!”
She took hold of his hand and put it inside her fur coat, thanking the cold for her hard nipples. She gave him a minute to touch her, kiss her throat. It wasn’t terrible, actually. It was even a little bit exciting.
“Come on,” she said. “Just come with me.”
With a ragged breath, he followed.
Chapter Twenty-one
Leading Pari home was a little like trying to take a walk with an oversexed dog. He kept slowing their progress by stopping Lovisa, groping her.
“Won’t your guards rat on you to your parents?” he said during one of these interludes. “Maybe we should do it here in the trees.”
It wasn’t time yet to break it to Pari that they’d be sidestepping the guards by climbing a wall, then a tree, then a trellis, then entering through a third-story window.