Deciding not to risk waking Erita, who was seven, Lovisa retraced her path. She needed a reason to be in the attic so that Viri wouldn’t get in trouble if she was discovered. She was sneaking down the back staircase again when an excuse appeared on the steps below: the youngest house guard, the one with the broad chest, the close-cropped hair, the northern lilt to his speech, and the beardless face. She couldn’t remember his name, only that his sister was also one of the Cavenda guards, and that he smiled at her sometimes, with a gleam she thought she recognized. A gleam she didn’t think her parents would like, if they saw it.

An idea appeared in her head, fully formed.

“Hello,” she said lightly.

“Hello, miss,” he responded, a tiny smile softening his lips.

She stopped on the step above his, so that their heights were more even. His brown eyes contained flecks of amber and he smelled like a wood fire. “Don’t tell on me,” she said, nodding toward the upstairs. “Please?”

“Tell on you for what, miss?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Were you?” he said, after the slightest, surprised hesitation. “Is there something I can do for you, miss?”

Now she hesitated. “I don’t know. You might not like it.”

His eyes touched her face. “I doubt that,” he said quietly.

He understood what she’d intended him to understand, and Lovisa was a little alarmed with herself. She’d done this before, with boys and girls at the academy, generally out of curiosity, to know what her friends were talking about when they talked about sex. This was more calculated, which made it different.

“Would you meet me in the attic at one o’clock?” she said. “I’ll show you then.”

“Of course, miss.”

And she continued down the stairs, planning to get to the attic early to visit Viri. Then the guard would arrive, so that if her mother or the fox arrived too, she could pretend she was there to meet him. Ferla wouldn’t like it, but Viri wouldn’t be punished for it.

—

Fifteen minutes before one o’clock, Lovisa crept out of her bedroom with a lamp.

She took the back stairs and passed through the nursery wing again, then the house staff’s wing, shining her light under every table and chair, into every corner, looking for the fox. Not finding him. She left the door to the attic stairs open, then ascended to the door above, steeling herself against the eeriness of the attic, always strange at night with its high ceilings and exposed beams. She left that door open for the guard as well. As she stepped into the attic, she swept her light around, still looking for the fox.