But it didn’t always make sense. Not when some humans were worth protecting from other humans, and some humans weren’t worth protecting at all.

This queen can’t be a wrong person to protect, he thought. I can feel the rightness of her heart. She must survive. And I’m going to help.

—

He wasn’t sure how much time he had before Lovisa came. Immediately, he began to bring things to the queen.

First, her own gold rings, because the fox knew that humans treasured things like that. He was familiar with the hidden lever that opened the secret drawers in Benni’s desk, but one of them opened with terrible squeaks, so he had to wait till no one was anywhere near. And he could only carry two rings at a time, so he did a lot of running.

“My rings,” the queen said in astonishment, the first time he burst into the room with two of them clenched in his mouth.

Hide them in the heat duct, he said. I’ll go get more.

“I will, of course,” she said, putting them on her fingers first, holding them up to the cold starlight. One had a large white stone that sparkled against her pale brown skin. The other had two inset stones, one gold, one silver. “But please don’t risk your safety for my rings.”

I can bring you Katu Cavenda’s ruby ring too, he said. And some of his other things. I know where they are, his papers and his traveling things. I suppose I should leave some of them where they are, though, he said, suddenly imagining what Benni might think if he opened his secret desk drawers and found everything gone. Maybe he should leave all of Katu’s things. Maybe he shouldn’t have given the queen her rings!

Then he realized that the queen had stilled her body. She’d turned to him with wide, frightened eyes. “Katu Cavenda?” she said.

Oh, yes, the fox said. He’s Ferla’s brother. Ferla Cavenda is the angry woman I’m bonded to.

The queen sat down slowly on the floor, right where she was, and hugged herself tight. “I knew it,” she said. “They looked so much like him. Their faces, the white streaks in their hair. But why would his sister have taken his things?”

It was Benni Cavenda who took his things, said the fox. So that no one would find them and realize Katu wasn’t really traveling.

“Oh, no,” said the queen. “Oh, poor Katu. What’s happened to him? Please tell me he’s not dead.”

I don’t know what’s happened to him, said the fox.

Do you know about two Monsean men who drowned?

A little, said the fox. Not much. I know Ferla is angry about it. I’m better with feelings and intentions, and with things that happen nearby.