“Make my head spin!” the boys began chanting, while Katu, laughing, worked around them. He hoisted Erita onto his shoulder so he could reach the dock line and Erita broke into delighted squeals. Katu was compact and strong and looked like Lovisa’s mother, especially the white streak in his hair, but he was so easy and friendly, so much less serious. The ruby on his thumb sparkled as he unhitched the dock line. He’d once, in Ferla’s hearing, called the ring “the only nice thing our father ever gave me,” which was ridiculous, for their father had given him a zilfium and silver mine he shared with his sister, not to mention the house that sat above it. But Katu spoke that way sometimes about the father Ferla idolized—called him a tyrant, a bully, and a bore—impressing Lovisa with this person who said what he wanted, did what he wanted, and wasn’t afraid of Ferla’s temper.

The other students in Politics of Trade were filtering into the classroom, glancing at Lovisa, greeting their professor, finding their seats. Lovisa took a breath. Then, deciding that she wanted to know the real reason her father had come looking for her mother, she asked to be excused to the restroom.

—

Inside a particular restroom on the second floor, Lovisa reached her hand up and felt along the marble ledge of one of the privy stalls. Finding the small wedge of wood she kept there, she jammed it hard under the door so that no one, person or fox, could come in. Then she bent down under the long sink basin and put her ear to the heating grate in the floor. Lovisa had a way of noticing what was on the other side of ceilings, floors, and walls. Two years ago, on one of her first days at the academy, she’d figured out that this restroom was directly above her mother’s office.

Immediately, she heard the rumble of her parents’ voices below, the sound rising through the heating pipes with a tinny distortion. Hot air gusted into Lovisa’s face, making her eyes water. But her mother’s voice was clear.

“I admit it’s not a terrible plan, Benni,” she said. “But it has a lot of variables. You tend to assume things you can’t be sure of yet. You’re rushing.”

Her father’s voice rumbled, his words imperceptible.

“That will be up to you,” said Ferla. “I can’t solve your storage problems. Come over here, would you? Stop fidgeting.”

Benni’s voice rose more audibly through the grate. “Could I store it in the attic room? It would be in a banker’s box. No one would look twice at it.”

A banker’s box was a small safe with a combination lock; Benni had two, which he used for categorically dull things. Usually cash.