Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  She understood him perfectly and she wanted to scratch his face off. “There’s more,” she said, clearing her throat uncomfortably. “I think he has a girlfriend at home.”

  Nev had pressed herself into the corner of the bed, head bent. She looked as small as one of Lovisa’s little brothers.

  “I’m sorry,” Lovisa said. “I think I know her name. I was considering writing her a letter about her boyfriend. Do you want her name too?”

  “No,” Nev whispered.

  “Okay,” said Lovisa. “I won’t write to her if you don’t want me to.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Nev. “But don’t use my name or describe me. For all I know, she’s my neighbor and she’ll call on me one day to doctor her horse or something.”

  “Right,” said Lovisa. “Of course.” She didn’t know what else to say. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. If I’d realized you were a normal person with normal feelings, I would have. But I’ve always thought you were on a plane above me.

  “What will you do?” she asked.

  “I’m going home,” said Nev.

  “What do you mean?” said Lovisa, instantly worried. “In the middle of the term? Don’t let him ruin your studies, Nev!”

  “It was decided yesterday,” said Nev. “I’m taking a leave of absence. There are—I’ve been—it’s best if I go home for a bit. I’m leaving today.”

  “Oh. How sudden,” said Lovisa, crushed by this, not understanding. “But, why?”

  Nev took a moment to study her own hands. Then she raised a face to Lovisa that contained both uncertainty and defiance. “Apparently I’ve learned some things,” she said. “Apparently they’re dangerous.”

  “Oh!” said Lovisa, suddenly dismayed. “What things?”

  “Well, obviously I’m not going to tell you, if they’re dangerous!” said Nev. “But I talk to the silbercows sometimes; I always have. We grow up talking to them in the north. And they tell me things. They tell me and Quona Varana. And Quona says that now I have to keep quiet, and go. I don’t even trust Quona!” she said. “But she’s convinced me to go.”

  Lovisa was now fighting to breathe. What might the silbercows know, what might they be saying? “Who else have you told about this besides me?”

  “No one. Why? What’s wrong?”

  Lovisa was deeply, intensely relieved that Nev was going home, if Nev had learned any of the things Lovisa knew. Maybe she’d be safe at home. “Nev,” she said, “don’t tell anyone else about any of it. Will you promise me you won’t tell anyone else?”

  “Lovisa!” said Nev, staring at her with new alarm. “What’s going on? What do you know?”

  Lovisa realized then that she was holding her cup so hard that it was shaking. How she must look. She breathed, then breathed again. “I can’t explain,” she said. “I can’t tell you any more than you can tell me. And I’m sorry. But it’s not safe for you to talk about any of it right now. Quona is right to swear you to silence and send you away. Do you trust me? I mean, of course you don’t trust me. I understand that.” She forced herself to take a sip from her cup. “But will you promise me not to tell anyone?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nev. “Why should I do that?”

  “Because it will keep you alive,” said Lovisa.

  Nev stood suddenly, sweeping her blanket over her shoulders, crossing the room to stand with Lovisa in the window. On the way, she bent down and lifted the fox kit into her arms. Together, they looked out through the glass, not talking. Nev held the fox kit close, her blanket cape brushing against Lovisa’s shoulder. She was so tall. Lovisa wanted to lean into her.

  “I don’t know what’s going on around me,” Nev said. “Quona won’t explain any of it to me. You won’t tell me. Nori has been lying to me all along. The truth is that I want to go home and never come back. Home is so different from Ledra. Here, everything is stuck, spinning in place. Everyone is trapped in some role and no one stops to think about why they’re doing what they do. Why they want the best grades, or the most friends, or the most information. Everyone lies and competes. Even some of the streets are traps, if you aren’t rich enough or connected enough to have some cowshit pass. I hate it here,” she said, in a voice that was composed almost entirely of contemptuous breath. “At home, you can see across the mountains. You can measure how much the glacier moves every year. You can breathe.”

  Lovisa wasn’t sure if she’d ever been someplace where she could breathe. “Why are you here?” she asked, not as a challenge; just out of curiosity.

  “Because my grandfather raised me to be an animal doctor,” she said. “Because I want to take care of animals. The academy can teach me things I can’t learn anywhere else on earth.”

  Lovisa knew her next question was selfish, but she couldn’t help herself. “So you’ll come back?” she said. “When all this is over?”

  “I guess so,” said Nev. “Whenever that is.”

  “Will you tell anyone else that you have dangerous knowledge?”

  Nev paused. “No,” she said. “I won’t tell, until I understand better what’s going on.”

  Lovisa’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “What time do you leave today?”

  “Early.”

  That was good. The sooner Nev went away, the fewer people Lovisa would have to worry about. “Thanks for the tea,” she said.

  “Thanks for telling me the truth about Nori,” said Nev.

  The light was changing, shifting. Lovisa perceived the slightest movement on the footpath below Nev’s window. Then, suddenly, she saw a pair of blinking gold eyes. Then more: three pairs, four. As Lovisa’s eyes adjusted, she kept seeing more foxes.

  “How creepy,” she said. “Why are there so many? Whose are they?”

  “I have a guess,” said Nev, sounding disgusted.

  Then Lovisa saw a fox that was sitting right in the middle of the group, staring up at her. It had a malevolent gleam in its eyes, a familiar long nose, and jaunty ears.

  “Oh,” she said. My mother’s fox.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  It hit her first as despair. That one, at least, is here for me. I’m never alone, I’m always watched. I can’t get away from it.

  I’ll never be free.

  Then, to her surprise, a tiny seed dropped down and took root, somewhere inside her. It was a realization. It began to grow into something certain, and sad.

  If I’m not free, then I have nothing to lose.

  So I may as well do something drastic.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  On Sunday morning, after he got home from Lovisa’s dormitory, the fox who was bonded to Ferla Cavenda sat in the corner of the attic room, peeking at the queen surreptitiously, worrying.

  Should I talk to her? he wondered. Shouldn’t I?

  For there was something the fox was beginning to fear, almost as deeply as he feared his favorite humans not surviving. The queen suspected so many of the secrets of foxkind. What if she survived, then told someone else all the things the fox had done?

  Around noon, while a weak light shone through the window and snowflakes softly fell, he stood. She was lying on her back in the bed, rubbing her head and reminding herself that she was stronger than the way her captors made her feel.

  Excuse me, he said.

  She stilled in her bed. Then she sat up, resting her clear gray eyes upon him.

  “Did you just talk to me, directly?” she said. “On purpose?”

  The fox blinked at her. May I ask you for a favor? he said.

  “Does this mean we’re bonded?” she said. “I thought you were bonded to that angry woman.”

  I am, he said. But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.

  “Do you know my friends?” she said. “Giddon and Hava? Are they safe?”


  I know of them, he said. I think they’re safe. They’re leaving for the north today. His siblings had told him that this very morning.

  She breathed one long, slow sob. “What’s in the north?”

  Many, many things, he said, but could we talk about that later?

  “They’re in good health?”

  Yes.

  “Okay,” she said, pulling herself together, focusing on him. “You said you wanted a favor? Certainly I owe you a great many favors. But I thought foxes couldn’t talk to people unless they were bonded.”

  The fox blinked again. Then he burst out with it, because he had to.

  Humans are supposed to think that, he said. It’s one of the fallacies we propagate, to protect the secrets of foxkind. I’m not supposed to be talking to you.

  The queen seemed struck by this. Her face was frozen with surprise. Then she wiped her eyes. “Have I lost my mind?”

  No. I’ve been breaking a lot of the rules with you, because of not knowing how to help you. And also because I want to be honest with you. So badly! That’s why I need a favor.

  “What favor?”

  Something is going to happen, said the fox.

  “What?”

  I don’t know, he said, remembering the feeling of Lovisa that morning. I’m not sure. But I think a human is going to try to help you.

  Another small sob escaped her. She waved at him to continue. “Please, go on.”

  When the thing happens that’s going to happen, the fox said, and for all the time afterward, will you promise never to tell any other human or fox that a fox who wasn’t bonded to you talked to you? That he defied his bonded human? That he brought you food? That he snuck in and out of the walls? That he was able to read your thoughts, and tried to manipulate your mind?

  The queen was silent. The fox tapped on her heart and mind. She was astonished, processing rapidly his every word. She was a smart one; she understood what he’d done and what his request meant for Winterkeep.

  She lifted her chin. “There are people in my life I don’t lie to,” she said. “One person in particular. I can’t make a promise to you that would break a promise to him.”

  That was an interesting dilemma. The fox considered it. Could you tell him, then swear him to secrecy?

  “I think so,” she said. “But what if something in his conscience compels him to tell someone someday?”

  The fox had never studied mathematics specifically, but he understood the meaning of exponential. This was the problem with secrets and lies, even among trustworthy people like this queen. And his heart was sinking, because he’d broken too many of the rules, and now he would never be safe. Nor would foxkind. Yes, he said. I see.

  “But I also see the position you’re in,” she said. “And you’re my friend. You’ve made this imprisonment bearable for me. You’ve even kept me safe, like that time with the letter opener. You have been honorable, helpful, and true. I can promise that I’ll never tell anyone I don’t need to, and that I’ll do all I can to protect your secret. I’ll also make every effort to consult you first, before I tell anyone new. Is that good enough?”

  * * *

  —

  It was strange, how much better the fox felt after that. And how desperate he was for her to survive. She looked ferocious and grand whenever she parried with the letter opener as if it were a sword. She was completely unlike any human he’d ever known; she was wondrous. She called me honorable, helpful, and true, he thought. Honorable, helpful, and true. Can that really be, when I’ve betrayed my kind?

  But what was I supposed to do? Let her starve? I couldn’t let her starve. Nor could I leave her feeling alone and helpless. I HAD to betray foxkind! Why are the rules what they are?!

  He knew why, of course. Humans had the power to change everything in the world, including laws about the lives of foxes. Foxes needed to protect themselves. Keeping secrets and telling lies, letting humans believe that humans were in charge while foxes manipulated them, was a necessary protection for foxes.

  But it didn’t always make sense. Not when some humans were worth protecting from other humans, and some humans weren’t worth protecting at all.

  This queen can’t be a wrong person to protect, he thought. I can feel the rightness of her heart. She must survive. And I’m going to help.

  * * *

  —

  He wasn’t sure how much time he had before Lovisa came. Immediately, he began to bring things to the queen.

  First, her own gold rings, because the fox knew that humans treasured things like that. He was familiar with the hidden lever that opened the secret drawers in Benni’s desk, but one of them opened with terrible squeaks, so he had to wait till no one was anywhere near. And he could only carry two rings at a time, so he did a lot of running.

  “My rings,” the queen said in astonishment, the first time he burst into the room with two of them clenched in his mouth.

  Hide them in the heat duct, he said. I’ll go get more.

  “I will, of course,” she said, putting them on her fingers first, holding them up to the cold starlight. One had a large white stone that sparkled against her pale brown skin. The other had two inset stones, one gold, one silver. “But please don’t risk your safety for my rings.”

  I can bring you Katu Cavenda’s ruby ring too, he said. And some of his other things. I know where they are, his papers and his traveling things. I suppose I should leave some of them where they are, though, he said, suddenly imagining what Benni might think if he opened his secret desk drawers and found everything gone. Maybe he should leave all of Katu’s things. Maybe he shouldn’t have given the queen her rings!

  Then he realized that the queen had stilled her body. She’d turned to him with wide, frightened eyes. “Katu Cavenda?” she said.

  Oh, yes, the fox said. He’s Ferla’s brother. Ferla Cavenda is the angry woman I’m bonded to.

  The queen sat down slowly on the floor, right where she was, and hugged herself tight. “I knew it,” she said. “They looked so much like him. Their faces, the white streaks in their hair. But why would his sister have taken his things?”

  It was Benni Cavenda who took his things, said the fox. So that no one would find them and realize Katu wasn’t really traveling.

  “Oh, no,” said the queen. “Oh, poor Katu. What’s happened to him? Please tell me he’s not dead.”

  I don’t know what’s happened to him, said the fox.

  Do you know about two Monsean men who drowned?

  A little, said the fox. Not much. I know Ferla is angry about it. I’m better with feelings and intentions, and with things that happen nearby.

  What do you know? said the queen. How much time do we have? I want to know as much as you can tell me.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  That Sunday afternoon, no knock sounded on Lovisa’s bedroom door.

  Funny how your parents murdering your friend can ruin a family tradition, Lovisa thought to herself. Then she burst into laughter, then curled up on her bed feeling sick.

  Vikti, Erita, and Viri will begin to wonder what’s become of me.

  After a failed attempt to escape into sleep, she got up and found her coat. Lovisa had decided, with a premonition that set her nerves humming, that she was going home for Sunday dinner.

  * * *

  —

  The walk to Flag Hill was more slippery than usual, the sun low and blinding. Lovisa’s mind was unconnected to her feet. She lost her footing at the top of an icy staircase and might have cracked her skull if a passing woman hadn’t shot a hand out and grabbed her arm.

  “Thank you,” said Lovisa breathlessly.

  “No worries,” said the woman in a friendly voice. Then she looked into Lovisa’s face and her expression changed into one of resentful politeness. Lovisa recognized her from the dormitory kitchen. She was
the young one Lovisa had eavesdropped on the day Queen Bitterblue had fallen into the sea.

  I’m just a spoiled, bossy student to her, thought Lovisa, surprised at how much it stung. Everything stung her lately. Her hide was peeling away, revealing something soft and baffling, and weak.

  At home, Viri was standing in the entrance foyer at the bottom of the stairs, his feet bare. At the sight of him, she felt a mute kind of panic. Why was she here? What was she going to do? And how could she keep whatever she did from hurting her brothers?

  “Lovisa!” Viri cried, shivering from the blast of cold air as she pushed in. “Lovisa! Are you staying overnight? Because Vikti built a telescope!”

  “How exciting,” she said. “I might stay overnight, I’m not sure. Where are Mother and Papa?”

  “Mother’s in her study and Papa’s in bed.”

  “Why is he in bed?”

  “I don’t know. He was gone overnight in the airship, then came home, then went to bed. They don’t talk to each other anymore and they get angry if we ask questions. Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Yes. I’m going to do some homework in Papa’s library. Then I’ll come play.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. What are you doing, anyway? Are you waiting for someone?”

  “I have to stand in this square,” he said, pointing down at the pale marble tile beneath his bare feet.

  “Why?”

  “Because I was bouncing a ball against a ceiling I didn’t realize was Mother’s floor.”