Now he was surprised, his eyebrows shooting up. “Do you mean, have sex with you?”

“Yes.”

“As a favor?”

“I can’t sleep. I’m stressed out beyond anything. I can’t get my mind to stop spinning—”

“Why do I feel like this isn’t how you seduce other people?” he said indignantly.

“There’s nothing I can do,” she said. “I need a distraction. You don’t have to worry, I won’t confuse what it means. We can do it, maybe we’ll both like it, and maybe my mind will stop, and afterward I’ll sleep. I mean, I’m not assuming you want to. But if it sounds okay, would you please sleep with me?”

“Lovisa,” he said, his face still taut with surprise. “It’s a bad idea. We’ve been friends forever.”

“So? That’s why I came to you.”

“I want to keep being friends forever,” he said. “I don’t want to complicate things.”

“It’s not complicated,” she said. “I know you’re in love with Nev. You know I’m not in love with you. What’s complicated?”

“But I don’t want to change things!”

“If I don’t sleep,” Lovisa said, “I’m going to lose my mind.”

Mari studied Lovisa for a moment, like he was trying to diagnose a complicated case. He’d always played doctor when they were little, loved to treat stomachaches or headaches or remove a splinter from her foot with great ceremony, as if it were a dangerous operation. She’d always liked it too, though she’d never admitted it to him. Mari was gentle, careful. It was nice to feel focused on, cared for.

Then he went to a chest at the foot of his bed and fumbled around inside it for a while. His hands emerged with a large wooden box. Sitting on the rug, he pulled a number of folded wooden boards from the box. Unfolded, they hooked together to make a carved map of city blocks, some containing ambles, some containing school buildings, some with government buildings, some with residences, hospitals, a dock area, and so on.

“Play City with me,” he said. “If you can’t sleep after that, we’ll talk about it.”

“You still have your City board?”

Dropping to the floor beside him, she fingered the pile of small, brightly clothed figurines that represented different kinds of people: shopkeepers, professors, sailors, guards, house staff, scientists, society figures, Parliamentary representatives, and so on. Their bodies were made of wood stained brown like her hands, their faces carefully carved, but their clothing was real fabric, their hair dark patches of felted wool. There was also a pile of carved wooden foxes.

“These are the same pieces we played with when we were six,” she said, fingering the worn silk suit of a society man.

“I’m sentimental, okay?”

“I don’t remember all the rules.”