“Mari?” Lovisa said, slowing her pace, letting the other boys move on. Pari Parnin, Kep Gravla, boys she would never trust with anything precious.

“Yeah?” he said, pausing with her. Then, when she didn’t speak, he searched her face again with his clear, perceptive eyes. “What’s wrong, Lovisa?”

Mari was, for all intents, Lovisa’s oldest friend, the friend who knew more of her childhood secrets than anyone. It had been a long time since she’d shared any secrets with him, or with anyone. But now she wanted to tell him about the snooping Monseans. Why had they been trying to get into her father’s desk? What were they looking for in there? Also, the thing they’d said about Benni running his shipping firm into the ground. It had made her so angry. But could it be true? The bitter feud between her parents, who usually never directed their bitterness at each other. Benni’s banker’s box—and the renovations—in the attic room. Lovisa couldn’t connect the dots, but Mari had an imagination. He might have ideas. She knew she could trust him to keep it to himself too.

She found herself hesitating, not knowing why. “Will you vote Industrialist when you’re older?” she asked instead.

“I guess so,” he said, not looking much interested. “You know I’m not political.”

Yes, she knew that Mari had no interest in his mother’s political career, nor in his father’s bank. Mari wanted to be a doctor, as in, for humans; he always had, since they were little. His parents were proud of him, for wanting to do something different. He was in the school of medicine here at the academy.

“I’m thinking of changing schools,” she said, only thinking of it as the words came out of her mouth.

“Really?” he said, surprised. “To what?”

Lovisa had no answer to that. She’d never questioned her school before and she didn’t suppose she was truly questioning it now. She wasn’t sure what she was questioning. “I’ll tell you another time,” she said.

“Yeah, okay. You’re being weird, you know that?”

“I’m just tired. Good night, Mari.”

“Okay, good night. You know where I am if you want to talk about this wonderful new plan to get disowned by both your parents,” he said.

She smiled, despite herself, then left him at his door. Inside her own room, the glow of streetlamps illuminated a crystalline pattern of frost on her window. She knew without looking that her desk was still covered with work. She knew she faced a long night of reading papers that bored her, burning her small stove for heat, wrapping herself in furs and blankets. Maybe moving out to the chair by the fire in the foyer, where studying felt less lonely, less meaningless.