When she reached her dormitory, a boy named Nori Orfa was on his way out. He was a northerner like Nev, but two-named like the Cavendas, from one of Winterkeep’s most prestigious tea manors in Torla’s Neck. In fact, he was one of the many Keepish who lived in a house on a cliff above the sea. Lovisa didn’t like Nori Orfa, at all. She knew a girl he’d hurt, with lies. And she wasn’t surprised to see him visiting this dorm; she’d noticed him and Nev chatting outside recently, stupid grins on their faces, like they thought they had a secret.

He smiled at her in that unsubtle, flirtatious way he always had, then held the door open for her in a way that crowded her and felt more intimate than it needed to. Ignoring him, she trudged up the steps, then through the corridors. As she passed Nev’s bedroom, she heard a scuffle inside, like someone was dragging the furniture. Then a yowl, then a laugh.

She knocked on the door. She couldn’t help herself.

A moment later, Nev swung the door open sharply. When she saw Lovisa, her face went expressionless. “Yes?” she said.

Lovisa’s eyes slid to Nev’s bed, automatically looking for rumpled blankets, the kind of disarray that might mean she’d just been having sex with Nori Orfa. She saw nothing. The blankets were neatly folded and a steaming cup on the desk suggested that Nev was doing homework. Her stove was burning and her window was full of plants, as always. Nev was one of those people who knew one plant from another.

“I heard yelling,” Lovisa said.

“Did you?”

There was a small movement under Nev’s bed. A dark nose poked out and one yellow eye peered up at Lovisa.

“You have a fox kit now?” said Lovisa.

“As you see.”

“Are you bonded?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“Do you know it’s against the rules to live in an academy dorm with an unbonded fox?”

“I have an exception from a teacher,” said Nev.

“You mean Quona Varana,” said Lovisa, understanding. “She gave you that fox, didn’t she.”

“As you know perfectly well, people can’t give people foxes,” said Nev. “Foxes choose their companions. She needed surgery. I performed it. She decided to stay with me afterward. It seemed appropriate to Quona, because I’m an animal medicine student. Now I’m caring for her.”

“Right. She’s homework,” Lovisa said as the kit emerged further, her enormous ears comical above her tiny, bandaged face. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know what she calls herself. I call her Little Guy.”

“Stupid name. She looks like a pirate. What happened to her?”

“I had to cut an aronworm from her face. It’s a pale, bulbous, wormlike parasite,” Nev said blandly, as if she were trying to be disgusting on purpose.