Nev was watering the plants in her window, from a tin watering can with a long, graceful spout. When she saw Lovisa, she shot her a tiny smile. “How are you?”

“Fine. You?”

“All right.”

Nev was suffering these days from a small heartbreak. Not Nori; she seemed to be coping fine without Nori. But her fox, Little Guy. The fox had apparently decided not to bond with Nev, and wasn’t living with her anymore. It had something to do with Quona Varana, though Lovisa didn’t know the details. She only knew that neither human nor fox should be allowed to break Nev’s heart like that.

Lovisa had offered to share Worthy with her. Laughing, Nev had told her she must have Worthy to herself. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m surrounded by animals in my life. You keep the one that’s yours. You need him.”

It was the sort of protectiveness that warmed Lovisa with surprise, then always made her think sharply of her father. Benni had been her protector too, when she was younger. But this protectiveness from Nev, which showed up in a lot of different ways, was different. When people tried to approach Lovisa on campus, Nev’s shoulders could get very big and swaggery, her face very unwelcoming. It made some tight thing inside Lovisa, some sense of guilt or obligation, relax, in a way she’d never relaxed with her father. Lovisa hadn’t worked out the difference. It was one of the things she’d been thinking about recently.

“You look tired,” said Nev now.

“People keep asking me my political party,” said Lovisa, rolling her eyes.

“Do you have to have a party?” said Nev. “Couldn’t you just have beliefs?”

“That’s a nice idea,” said Lovisa, “but then who would vote for me?”

“Running for something, are you?” said Nev, with a crooked grin.

“Definitely not.”

“Do you want to come in? Or just hover in the doorway?”

Sometimes Lovisa got confused about whether Nev was flirting. Did she want Nev to be flirting? And then she would worry that she was hanging around Nev the way she feared Mari was hanging around her; and Mari was her oldest friend and Nev was Mari’s ex; so could there possibly be anyone more complicated for Lovisa to be having these confusions about?

And then Nev would give her a sly grin and invite her in, and Lovisa would stop caring about Mari. Then get confused and worried again, then remember who she was. She was Lovisa Cavenda. Lovisa Cavenda was a person who would just ask Nev outright about it one day, plain and straightforward. And then she would deal with Nev’s answer, whatever it was. She had a feeling Nev would deal with it too.