Then Ferla spun around and marched toward the door without speaking. A moment later, they heard the front door slam. That was unusual too. Her parents always kissed goodbye in the morning.

In his hands, Benni held the leather wallet Lovisa knew to be stuffed with samklavi candies. He slipped it into a pocket, then smiled at Lovisa.

A smile, when he’d just threatened to take her name away?

It was exhausting, sometimes, to hold up the pretense of being unintelligent about certain things. “I don’t believe you’d ever take my name away, just because I loved someone,” she said. “I’m not a criminal.”

Benni peered at her so keenly that Lovisa feared she’d accidentally said something intelligent. She gave him her blankest expression.

“Did you know that I lived at home during my tenure at the academy, Lovisa?” he said. “I did so at my parents’ request, so that they could teach me the shipping business.”

It was difficult for Lovisa to keep her expression smooth in response to any suggestion she live at home. Benni came from a family of shipbuilders, shipowners, and importers. He owned dozens of ships and he was never satisfied, always wanting to move into newer, bigger, more profitable kinds of shipping. Ferla’s mine—the one she shared with Katu—was a steady supplier of silver. It had been rich in zilfium too, in Ferla’s father’s time, though the zilfium had recently reached the point of depletion. The diminished value of the mine was one of the many reasons Ferla worked so tirelessly and pushed those around her so hard, trying to live up to the standards of her father.

Lovisa had no interest in either of her parents’ family industries. Not that she had any interest in her own course of study either; she’d chosen the school of politics and government out of a bored sense of obligation. Maybe also because it was easy. “I think it’s better for my schoolwork if I live on campus, Papa,” she said. “I’d better get going, or I’ll miss my first class.”

—

On the walk back to the dormitory, Lovisa felt like a different person from the girl who’d left campus the night before.

She’d had sex twice with a guard whose career was now ruined; she’d stolen from her parents while they slept; and she’d prepared a secret path into the house with a plan to sneak into her mother’s prison soon.

What were her parents fighting about? What was her father storing in the attic room? And why had her mother passed her father candy, wrapped up in a wallet as if it were a state secret?

In one pocket, the box with the key imprint bumped against Lovisa’s leg. She reached in to touch it. Then, from another pocket, she unearthed some biscuits, which she ate in lieu of breakfast.

Chapter Nine