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Chapters (63)
  1. Dedication
  2. Map
  3. A Note to the Reader
  4. PART ONE
  5. The Keeper
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. PART TWO
  16. The Keeper
  17. Chapter Ten
  18. Chapter Eleven
  19. Chapter Twelve
  20. Chapter Thirteen
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-one
  29. PART THREE
  30. The Keeper
  31. Chapter Twenty-two
  32. Chapter Twenty-three
  33. Chapter Twenty-four
  34. Chapter Twenty-five
  35. Chapter Twenty-six
  36. Chapter Twenty-seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-eight
  38. Chapter Twenty-nine
  39. PART FOUR
  40. The Keeper
  41. Chapter Thirty
  42. Chapter Thirty-one
  43. Chapter Thirty-two
  44. Chapter Thirty-three
  45. Chapter Thirty-four
  46. Chapter Thirty-five
  47. Chapter Thirty-six
  48. Chapter Thirty-seven
  49. Chapter Thirty-eight
  50. Chapter Thirty-nine
  51. Chapter Forty
  52. Chapter Forty-one
  53. PART FIVE
  54. The Keeper
  55. Chapter Forty-two
  56. Chapter Forty-three
  57. Chapter Forty-four
  58. Chapter Forty-five
  59. Cast of Characters
  60. Acknowledgments
  61. About the Author
  62. Don’t miss any of THE GRACELING REALM novels
  63. What’s next onyour reading list?

Once she had a key made, Lovisa could wait until everyone was out, especially the fox, and satisfy her curiosity about what her father was keeping in a banker’s box in the attic room. Lovisa knew the combinations to her father’s banker’s boxes; she’d spied them out long ago. Maybe, next time one of her brothers was in serious trouble, she could even join him, bring him snacks, act out the Keeper stories with him. She could bring him paper and crayons too, for they all loved to draw. The Keeper was never specifically described in the stories the silbercows told, beyond being big, but Viri usually drew her with twenty-four spiderlike legs around a bulbous, one-eyed body. “Icositetrapus cyclops,” Lovisa always said, a name for a twenty-four-legged, one-eyed creature that she’d made up after doing some research in the academy library, and he would dissolve into laughter, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

With her own way in and out, Lovisa could be the spy, instead of the spied upon. The rescuer, instead of the prisoner. She could do what she liked.

In her own bed, the face and the voice, the body of her sweet guard wouldn’t leave her alone. What would happen to him when the fox told Ferla about the kissing?

Lovisa was so exhausted that even her guilty feelings couldn’t keep her awake.

—

The blue fox was in the airship on the roof, standing at the bow in the dark, like a courageous captain exploring the night. He was reflecting on the last few hours.

He’d had to make a lot of tricky, sudden decisions tonight. Lovisa Cavenda had kept him on his toes, literally. At one point, he’d had to streak through a heat duct and leap down from the attic ceiling, so that she would see him, and believe that he was spying for her mother.

He didn’t want to tell on her for the kissing with the guard, and bring her mother’s wrath down upon her. But he needed to do something that would keep Lovisa from being so curious in the future, and nothing could restrict Lovisa’s movements more effectively than telling on her to her mother.