Lovisa didn’t want a freezing, windy walk, nor did she want her mother’s company if her mother was under a lot of stress. She especially didn’t want the spying gold eyes of her mother’s fox. Blue foxes could live how they liked, bonded or unbonded; Sentient Animal Law protected their freedom to choose. Most foxes bonded to no one, choosing to remain independent, living in the wild or in fox sanctuaries where humans catered to them. But other foxes liked the companionship of bonding, or the feeling of usefulness, or the treats. In return for a cushy life in a private house, the fox was loyal, and, if its human had particular requests, obedient.

Of course Ferla Cavenda had wanted an obedient fox who could sneak around and speak to her and her alone. She’d visited fox sanctuaries for months before one had expressed an interest in her companionship. Then that fox had lived in the Cavenda house for almost a year, while Ferla doted on him with a sweetness that had obscurely alarmed nine-year-old Lovisa, for Ferla never showed that saccharine sweetness to her children. It had crawled with falseness. But it had worked. The fox had finally chosen to bond to Ferla. From that day forward, Lovisa had felt eyes on her back.

Despite the promise of those eyes, tonight Lovisa was curious. She could never help herself when she was curious.

Pushing up from her chair, she went to her bedroom for warm clothes, a coat, and her bag, schooling her face to look homesick. Lovisa would sleep at home tonight.

Chapter Seven

Lovisa’s night did not go as planned.

Most of the estates in the neighborhood of Flag Hill stood behind stone walls, with gates that were left open during the day and locked at night. The expectation was that an unannounced visitor like Lovisa would ring the bell at the Cavenda gate, then wait for a guard to come let her in. And of course, that was what she intended to do. But first, she found the unlit section of wall with the pokey rocks and used them to climb over.

Pokey rocks, she thought as she found purchase on one rock, then the next, hoisting herself up to the top of the wall. That was the name she and Mari Devret had given these rocks when they’d climbed them as children. Their feet had been smaller then, of course, more nimble, but Lovisa’s feet were still pretty small. And her skirts were in fact wide pants legs, her leather gloves good for gripping and wiping away snow, her shoes snug and flexible.