Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  “One of them, the queen’s doctor, I think, was way too polite and pleasant for someone who’s just lost his queen. You know? Wouldn’t you expect someone to show some feelings?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Another one, a big, tall guy named Gidlon or Gildon or something, was all glassy-eyed and pale, and he hardly said a word. I mean, even paler than most Monseans, like he was almost transparent. And he kept shivering too.”

  “Like someone in shock?” Lovisa offered.

  “Or someone who can’t believe he just threw his own queen overboard,” Ta said. “Don’t you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  “A bunch of the Royal Continent envoys were there too. The Estillan, the Dellian. The Lienid envoy kept crying. The Monsean queen is half-Lienid, you know.”

  “Mm-hm.” Lovisa remembered her parents talking about the Estillan envoy. “Was your aunt Quona there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she have anything to say about it?”

  “Um, she’s an animal doctor,” said Ta. “What would she have to say? There’s a Graceling in the delegation too, but she wasn’t at dinner.”

  Lovisa was beginning to be rather envious of this dinner. “What kind of Graceling?”

  “I don’t know. But the big guy asked about your uncle.”

  “Katu?”

  “Yes,” said Ta. “Apparently they know him. They wanted to know if he was back from his travels.”

  “He’s not,” said Lovisa, badly wishing she knew where to write to Katu. He would want to know about Queen Bitterblue. And he would understand how Lovisa felt right now, like a door that had seemed about to open had slammed shut.

  “Is your mother all right?” Ta went on, eyes gleaming. “She got a message during class this morning and ended it early. Then she was late for dinner. Like, very late. We were already done with the soup.”

  Lovisa had gone to Politics and Trade class this morning early as usual, then wondered why the classroom was empty. It had been one of the first clues that something was different today. And it was, in fact, unusual for Ferla to be late for anything, especially a dinner at which powerful people were present. “As far as I know, she’s fine,” said Lovisa, then waited.

  “Supposedly she was dealing with some problem at home,” said Ta. “Your father wasn’t at dinner at all.”

  “Oh, wow,” said Lovisa. “One of my little brothers is sick. I wonder if he’s okay.”

  Ta wandered away, satisfied with herself, leaving Lovisa to ponder her mother’s tardiness to dinner and her father’s absence. One of her brothers was sick. But Lovisa doubted Vikti’s cold would keep her parents away from a dinner with the prime minister and delegates from the Royal Continent.

  She was half looking out the window thinking this over, half reading her Sentient Animal Law textbook, when another student who’d been missing from dinner appeared on the path below. Nev. Finally. Lovisa had noticed Nev’s absence, a little clock in the corner of her mind paying attention to the passage of time. It was well past curfew. This mattered for a student like Nev, who wasn’t the niece of the prime minister. Nev could get into trouble for being out so late.

  Lovisa watched Nev approach. Even through the thickening snow, her tall, straight-shouldered form was unmistakable; that one-named girl always looked as if the freezing cold, her hatlessness, the lateness of the hour, and any other unpleasant circumstance was inconsequential to her. She was a scholarship student from the north, Torla’s Neck, a province in Winterkeep near to the Kamassarian border. Lovisa had been to Torla’s Neck several times, because it was the location of the house and mine shared by her mother and uncle. Ferla and Katu had grown up in Torla’s Neck. The province was rough, wild. A place with few wealthy families, few restaurants; a place with glaciers, and rocks, and forests, and mines. Not a place that justified Nev’s proud shoulders.

  Nev stopped in a circle of light cast by one of the streetlamps and raised her face to a window somewhere above Lovisa’s. Mari Devret’s, probably. Lovisa had watched Nev climb to Mari’s window more than once when Nev and Mari had been dating and Nev had been doing whatever it was Nev did that made her miss curfew so often. Breaking curfew without a pass from a professor meant a demerit, which carried a fine that Lovisa was sure Nev couldn’t afford. Too many demerits led to expulsion.

  But Lovisa doubted that Nev would call on Mari Devret for help with that now. It hadn’t been a friendly breakup. Lovisa knew, because Mari was one of her oldest friends, that Mari had been too surprised and hurt for that. It had been months ago and he was still moping around, like a sulking child. There were other rumors too, mean stuff that Lovisa collected and filed away, but didn’t necessarily believe.

  She’s . . . pretty? Lovisa thought, studying Nev’s brown face. No. Nev wasn’t pretty, but she was something, her black hair cut close to her head, her strong mouth and her high chin arresting. Handsome. The shadows of a snowy street suited her too. Her rough coat, made of patchy furs she’d probably trapped herself, always had a way of making her look strong, rather than poor.

  Then, suddenly, Nev was staring straight at Lovisa. She gave no sign of greeting, just stared.

  I could open this window for her, Lovisa thought. I could go get Mari’s ladder, or someone else’s.

  Instead, she stared back, curious to see what Nev would do.

  To her surprise, Nev turned straight for the dormitory doors. Lovisa heard them open and close below, heard Nev’s muttered conversation with the monitor, but couldn’t make out the words. She adopted the guise of being deeply focused on her Sentient Animal Law textbook. When Nev climbed the steps and reached the landing, Lovisa ignored her.

  Then, as Nev brushed past, Lovisa smelled a strange mixture of scents on her clothing. Blood, the cold, and the sea. Nev was in the school of animal medicine, and sometimes Lovisa couldn’t help her own horrified fascination.

  “What happened this time?” she asked. “You smell even worse than usual.”

  Nev stopped. She slid eyes to Lovisa that conveyed nothing, not one jot, of what she was thinking. Then she glanced at the textbook in Lovisa’s lap. “I doubt you’d find it interesting,” she said, her northern lilt stronger than Ferla’s or Katu’s. Most northerners worked to sound more like Ledrans when they were in Ledra. Not Nev.

  Lovisa noticed a bandage wrapped around her left palm. “I’m interested in how it’s humanly possible to smell so bad.”

  “It’s not,” Nev said. “I’m not human. Now you know my secret.”

  Nev wasn’t usually quippy like that. She looked tired, her bland expression more deliberately constructed than usual. It was interesting. “Did it turn out well,” asked Lovisa, “whatever it was?”

  Nev hesitated. “Yes and no.”

  “Oh,” said Lovisa, noticing a smear of sand stuck to some unknown sticky substance on Nev’s trousers. “Too bad. Were you on the beaches?”

  “For a bit.”

  “Did you hear any of the hubbub about the Monsean queen?”

  “No.”

  “Apparently she fell out of a ship today and drowned.”

  “How sad,” said Nev.

  Lovisa felt a small, unwilling smile forming on her face, from the pleasure of a conversationalist who was as good as she was at seeming indifferent. “Where’d you get a pass?”

  “A professor.”

  “Which professor?”

  “Quona Varana.”

  Of course. “Is Quona Varana the person who always keeps you out so late?” said Lovisa, unable to hide her curiosity.

  Then, at the sound of footsteps on the stairs above, she deadened her expression. A couple of boys carrying papers and books clattered down into the foyer and gave Nev small, particular smiles. These were Mari Devret’s friends, rich, popular boys, probably coming from studying in Mari’s room. Their smiles were
n’t friendly.

  “Hello, Lovisa,” said one of them, a smirky boy named Pari Parnin. None of them greeted Nev.

  “Move along, Pari,” said Lovisa, unimpressed.

  The boys disappeared down a corridor. Nev chose that moment to move along too, turning for the stairs, not saying good night to Lovisa, who watched her go, wondering if Nev relaxed her shoulders once she’d entered her own room and closed the door on the world. Also wondering if she’d eaten anything in lieu of dinner. Did Nev keep a stash of food? Lovisa always kept food in her pockets. It made her feel prepared.

  Two more boys came down the steps, greeted Lovisa, and left, this time without any unfriendly smiles. Ever since Nev had broken things off with Mari, a rumor had been circulating about Nev’s skills in bed. Her lack of skills, actually. Lovisa strongly doubted that Mari had started it, for he wasn’t the type to circulate cruel rumors that probably weren’t even true. Lovisa suspected Pari Parnin.

  Regardless, it was what those boys’ smiles had been about earlier, when they’d seen Nev. The kind of smiles that say I hear you’re no fun.

  Lovisa stared into space, her mind returning to matters of greater interest. Was her house in Flag Hill now full of grieving Monsean delegates? How was her mother, the Scholar, turning that to her advantage? How was her father, the Industrialist, counteracting her mother? When there were foreign delegates in the house, it was always interesting to watch for the secret, self-interested undercurrents in her parents’ outwardly gracious behavior.

  Also, why had her father skipped dinner and her mother left class? Why had her mother been late? Was the stress of Ferla’s responsibilities as professor and president finally getting to her? A crack in the armor, deep enough for people outside the house to notice? If so, it would be the first such crack Lovisa had ever seen.

  Was there a Graceling living in her house right now? If so, what colors were her eyes? What was her Grace? So few Gracelings passed through Winterkeep. People were talking recently about a Graceling woman living in Ledra who had the Grace of finding lost things, but Lovisa hadn’t met her.

  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.

  Once on her own grounds, she was careful to avoid the light from the wall lanterns and the house windows. If one of the guards caught her, it wouldn’t be a calamity, but it might make her mother start paying closer attention to what Lovisa did. The thick falling snow helped to obscure her. She hoped it would cover her footprints.

  She circled the house. Her father’s library on the first floor was gently lit, as if he were sitting in thought with a cup of tea. Her mother’s study on the second floor was glowing with the kind of light that only came from silbercow lamps, a rich, golden warmth. Lovisa was hardly ever invited into her mother’s study, but what always hit her first was the smell of the silbercow lamps, deep and earthy, like summer soil. Silbercow oil was highly regulated by Sentient Animal Law and exorbitantly expensive, but Ferla wasn’t one to deprive herself.

  Up at the top of the house, a dim light shone in an attic window at the back. Lovisa felt an anxious tug, wondering which of her brothers was up there tonight in Ferla’s attic room, and why. It was a customary feature in a Flag Hill house, a small room in the attic, far away from the front door, unreachable by intruders. Most people used it as a storage space for valuables, but Lovisa’s mother used it for discipline. It wasn’t a terrible room, in and of itself. It had a bed and desk, a rug, a book or two, a lamp. When Lovisa was little, Ferla might close her in there briefly with her homework, some crayons for drawing, a hot drink and extra blankets if the day was cold. “You need some time to yourself,” Ferla would say, clear and strict, “to think about what you’ve done.” It was lonely, but it was fine.

  But Ferla had a temper. It could burn low for hours. For days, even, heat snaking along her voice, glimmering in her eyes, slowly growing. Eventually, it would explode into a conflagration that could be felt all over the house. It was invariably one of her children who set it off, by being loud or asking one too many questions, by whining or crying, by interrupting her when she was with Benni. On those days, the punishments were different. She would close Lovisa in the room with a flint, a candle, and no food, taking the books and the lamp away, locking the door. “This is harder for me than it is for you,” she would say. “This is soft compared to what some parents do. When your uncle and I were children, our father would put us in a cave. It was cold and hard. Our only visitors were birds and our only view was the sun over the ocean as night fell. Do you understand, Lovisa? Do you understand that your life is soft?” She would shut the door, turn the lock, then not come back. When her anger burned itself out, she would send one of the guards to release the child. Lovisa would have to guess at how to ration the candle, not liking the darkness, but never knowing for sure how long her punishment would last. Sometimes it stretched well into the night. She’d learned to control a nervous bladder, and to hide food in her pockets all the time. She’d learned a lot of things.

  Lovisa continued around the house. She noticed, with surprise, that no lights shone in the guest apartments on the third floor. Were the Monseans already asleep? It occurred to her that their presence in the house boded well for whichever boy had misbehaved. Ferla did not lose her temper in front of foreign delegations.

  Atop the house, the Cavenda airship was tethered, a bulbous beast, dark against the falling snow. Lovisa doubted she’d be able to see it if she didn’t already know it was there. In daytime, the decorations of its balloon were visible: a purple, blue, and gold scene of silbercows swimming with the Keeper, as on the Keepish flag. Airships like this were Winterkeep’s pride. The technology was proprietary,
no other Torlan nation had them, and Ta had been right when she’d said that Flag Hill was showing them off tonight. Her parents’ airship might be in darkness, but a number of the houses Lovisa had passed had lanterns glowing on their roofs, illuminating the most expensive possession a Keepish citizen could own.

  Lovisa scaled the wall again, in the back of the yard where the rocks made it easiest on this side. Then she circled around to the front, where she went to the gate, rang the bell, and waited.

  * * *

  —

  The blue fox who was bonded to Ferla Cavenda loved it second-best of all when Lovisa came home. Lovisa was one of the more interesting Cavendas, a born liar like Ferla, but better at it, because she didn’t need people to admire her.

  First-best, of course, he loved the airship, into which he was never invited. He snuck up to the roof sometimes and sat inside, imagining the wind whipping against his fur as he flew toward adventure.

  The fox was dozing on the hearthstone of Ferla’s study fireplace when he sensed Lovisa on the grounds outside, snooping. Sometimes Lovisa did that, climbed over the wall and circled the house before announcing herself at the gate. She snooped in the politics and government building too; the fox always knew when she was listening through the vents. Humans didn’t appreciate how much foxes could perceive. This suited foxes, for humans would sneak a lot less and be a lot less interesting if they knew. It was one of the secrets of foxkind.

  He wasn’t surprised Lovisa had come home tonight. Lovisa had an instinct for when drama was brewing, and it was certainly brewing tonight. Ferla was a tornado of rage that coiled tighter and tighter as the evening progressed. Benni Cavenda, her husband, swept in from time to time to announce something boring about stupid zilfium. When he did this, Ferla would stare at him, throwing daggers with her eyes, until he went away. Ferla was furious at everyone and everything. The fox didn’t always like being bonded to Ferla Cavenda, but he did like these moments, for Ferla was a human composed of sharp motivations, passions, and ambitions, like a tangled pile of pins, always interesting. He might not always understand what her thoughts meant or what they referred to, but he always understood how she felt about them. And she had a warm, cozy house; an airship; a beautiful fur coat with a hood he could nestle into; and a family with a penchant for drama.