And he was right. Lovisa always did the reading, because that was the path to perfect grades. But Lovisa couldn’t care less about the upcoming vote scheduled for December on whether to legalize zilfium use in Winterkeep, because there was no point. The results were already certain. The Industrialists, who were the pro-zilfium party, did not have enough votes to win. It was too bad, because Lovisa had a feeling she’d like the zilfium trains that the other Torlan nations enjoyed. Her uncle Katu, who was her mother’s baby brother and a world traveler, had told her all about them. He’d once ridden a train across Kamassar and Borza, then on into Mantiper. For all Lovisa knew, Katu was on a train somewhere right now, for Katu had set off again a few months ago on a new adventure. Maybe he would write soon, and tell her where he was. Lovisa hoped he would. Katu was so much younger than his sister—in his mid-twenties, really closer to Lovisa’s sixteen than to Ferla’s ancient grown-up-ness—and so different from Ferla that he’d always felt like more of a cousin than an uncle.

“Zilfium trains smell like burning and excitement,” Katu had told her once as they climbed aboard his boat. When Katu was home, he often took Lovisa and her three little brothers sailing.

Lovisa had snorted, whacked his shoulder idly, and demanded to know what excitement smelled like.

“Like the sun on metal,” he said, “and a saltwater wind.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re wild about boats.”

A smile had transformed Katu’s face into light. Lovisa’s brother Viri, who was five, had repeated, “Wild about boats!” Then Viri had stood up straight as a soldier, tiny, brown, and freckled, waving his arms around as the boat moved under him, repeating it again, chanting it to the sky. “Wild about boats! Wild about boats!” The other boys, Erita and Vikti, seven and nine, had joined in the chant. Being with Katu made the boys hyper, silly. They always seemed a little drunk around him. Katu, who thought life in their household was grimmer than it needed to be, did nothing to discourage it.

“I’m wild about my niece and nephews,” Katu had responded as he began to check the winches; then, rolling his eyes good-humoredly at the boys, “Or maybe they just make my head spin.” And Lovisa had wished, if he was so wild about them, that he would take them the next time he ran off. Or at least take her. She wanted to climb the mountains of Kamassar and hug the coasts of Borza in a big, long metal contraption that sounded like grinding steel and smelled like excitement.