Why did she work so hard, when she cared so little? She’d never found politics difficult to follow, because every dispute was the same. People were motivated by money, power, idealism, fame. Usually money. What was the real reason the Scholars didn’t want to legalize zilfium use in Winterkeep? In Parliament, Scholars yelled at Industrialists for not caring about the air and water pollution that would impact Keepish industries like fishing and farming. They yelled about Winterkeep’s beauty. Sometimes they even yelled about fairy tales, as if they actually mattered: According to the oldest stories of the silbercows, humanity’s most solemn promise was to help protect the planet. The Keeper was watching.

But how could Lovisa believe that the Varanas weren’t motivated by the need to protect their own transportation monopoly? If they really wanted to protect the earth, wouldn’t they be throwing their varane formulas at other nations, so other nations could have environmentally safe transportation too? And what about the Dimara family? They were Scholars, shippers who transported Keepish zilfium to Mantiper. If zilfium use became legal in Winterkeep, new laws would limit zilfium’s exportation, and the Dimaras would never find anything Mantiper wanted as much. Lovisa’s own mother co-owned the Cavenda mine in Torla’s Neck with Katu. The mine was situated right at the base of the Winterkeep peninsula, where a narrow strip of land connected Winterkeep with Kamassar. The zilfium had already been mined out of that land, but silver remained. Lovisa guessed that if zilfium trains became legal in Winterkeep, the inevitable train connecting Winterkeep to Kamassar would cut through Ferla’s land, compromising her ability to mine silver. Lovisa did not believe, for one iota of one second, that her mother cared about pollution. She was a miner! Mining was known to pollute the environment! What Ferla cared about was her ability to keep mining.

And of course the Industrialists had selfish reasons too; they were just slightly more honest about it. Slightly. They argued that the rest of Torla was growing mechanized while Winterkeep was left behind. In another twenty years, how would Winterkeep compete? What about the poor Keepish farmers who could increase their productivity with zilfium plows? What about the poor Keepish fishers who could trawl more with zilfium-driven boats? But the truth was that Industrialist families like the Balavas, or like Lovisa’s own father, wanted zilfium boats for themselves. They were shippers, and an exciting new continent full of people eager to buy things existed to the west.