Could it hurt to know what her father was keeping in the attic room?

Lovisa, who was thinking more clearly now about what the fox had seen her do, had a feeling that her mother’s vengeance in the morning was going to be unsparing. Well. If she was already in trouble, why not risk more?

Almost disbelieving what she was about to do, Lovisa closed Erita’s door, checking the latch to ensure the fox couldn’t get in. Then she went back to her own bedroom and collected a few supplies.

Chapter Eight

Lovisa had two goals.

First, she snuck down the corridor with the guest apartments, where the Monseans would have been staying had the queen not died. In one of the bedrooms there was a window with a latch that she and Mari had deliberately broken as children, for there was a trellis and a tree outside. They’d never actually climbed up to the window and snuck in, but Lovisa wanted to know if anyone had fixed the lock since. She went to the window, checked that the latch was in the locked position, then tried the frame. The window opened easily. Good.

Next, she went straight to her parents’ bedroom on the second floor. She took a moment in the corridor to light a single candle. Both of her parents drank teas to help them sleep. Hoping the teas were working tonight, Lovisa opened their door and passed inside.

In the flickering light of her candle, Lovisa saw the sleeping faces of her parents in their mountain of a bed. Her mother’s face, small and tight and so much like her own, was angry. Her father’s was slack and foolish, which made Lovisa inexplicably sad.

She went to the chest at the foot of the bed, where her mother always laid her clothing. It was an odd quirk, in a woman of such wealth and with so many responsibilities, to insist on managing her own wardrobe. But one thing Ferla never seemed to mind was more work.

Lovisa sat on the floor, then quietly, methodically, made her way through her mother’s pockets. She found some money, which would serve as her excuse if she got caught: She was here to steal money, she’d say. Ferla would never question monetary greed as a motive, seeing as it was one of her own motivating principles.