“She’s cute,” Lovisa said, startling Nev, and herself too. She pushed away from the doorframe, grasping for an insult. “So that’s what you and Quona do together? Remove parasites? Do you go to her house and pet her cats? Does she take you with her when she communes with silbercows?”

Something closed in Nev’s eyes. A curtain coming down, for Nev to hide something behind. It was interesting. “I’ve seen some injured silbercows recently,” she said. “Did you know that? Some have come to shore with cuts and burns.”

“So?”

“So?” Nev repeated, with so much contempt that Lovisa took a small step backward. “Silbercows are important. They understand things about the world that we can’t. They rescue drowning people.”

Lovisa had tried to talk to silbercows once, at her mother’s house in Torla’s Neck, when she was little. It hadn’t worked. The purple blobs out at sea had offered no acknowledgment of her existence whatsoever. It had made her feel . . . insufficient. Like she wasn’t important enough. And it had made her half suspect that anyone who said they talked to silbercows was lying.

“They haven’t done such a good job rescuing drowning people lately,” said Lovisa, thinking of the queen. “I think Quona’s just trying to brainwash you into believing her family’s party line so you’ll vote for the Scholars.”

“Why would I care about party lines?” said Nev. “I’m not political, I’m an animal doctor in training. And at least I’m that. You’re not anything.”

Tears stung Lovisa’s throat. “Good night,” she said, turning away so that Nev wouldn’t see her expression.

“Good night,” said Nev, sounding confused suddenly, as if she hadn’t expected to drive Lovisa off with her words. And why should she? She was only being honest, as Nev always was.

In the hallway, a crowd of boys passed by, greeting Lovisa, moving on. The last boy in the group was Mari Devret, who turned to look into the room of his ex. In an instant, his unhappy eyes seemed to absorb everything: Nev’s fox kit, Nev’s tidy bed, the messy piles on Nev’s desk, the plants in Nev’s window, Nev herself. Lovisa watched his eyes flash across Nev’s face, hurt, reproachful.

Sighing, she took his arm and pulled him away.

“What?” he said defensively.

“When are you going to stop being so pathetic?”

“When you stop being mean,” he said, then canted his face, looking at Lovisa more closely. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Shut up.”

“Very convincing,” he said. “How was dinner?”

“There was an incident with a Graceling.”

“Really? What kind of Graceling?”

“She can change what you think you see when you look at her. She kept turning into a sculpture at the dinner table.”

This seemed to cheer Mari up. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”