Today she wished she could talk to Viri, Erita, and Vikti as their older selves, five, ten, twenty years from now. Find out how her decision about testifying would touch their lives. What would hurt them least? Her testimony, or the queen’s?

It was an impossible question to answer. They weren’t old enough. They were five, seven, and nine.

She did notice, as she walked, that her own question had changed. It had used to be: Should she testify or shouldn’t she? Now it was: Who should testify, Lovisa or the queen?

That was a big change.

—

Today, she found the boys crowded together on the Devrets’ library floor, playing City with someone familiar.

“Katu,” Lovisa said, always warming with relief and joy when she saw her uncle. From his position on his stomach, Katu shot her a smile.

“Lovisa!” the boys cried out. “Come play!”

“There’s hardly room!” she said, laughing.

“I’m going to steal your sister for a minute, boys,” Katu said, pushing himself up from the floor with creaks and groans. “Listen to me. You’d think I was sixty years old.”

“You’ll get younger as you recover,” said Lovisa jokingly, hoping it was true. He did look and seem older, and it tugged at her heart.

He led her into the corridor, then around the corner to a small sitting room close to the staff stairs. It was Lovisa and Katu’s unofficial meeting place at the Devret house, a room out of everyone else’s way, where they could sit together and catch up. The Devrets had noticed. The fire was always burning in here, whenever Katu came to visit.

“Erita told me something that touches upon one of our unsolved mysteries,” Katu said.

“Oh, no,” said Lovisa in dismay as she pulled a chair close to the fireplace. “Something he heard?” Erita kept randomly coming out with conversations he remembered having overheard between Benni and Ferla. It made Lovisa wonder what else was trapped inside these boys that they weren’t telling her yet, either deliberately, or because they’d forgotten.

“Yes,” said Katu grimly. “Apparently he heard Ferla yelling at Benni for not waiting until the zilfium vote before he started experimenting.”

“Before he started experimenting—with the explosive weapon?”

“That’s my guess.”