26

THE ART DEPARTMENT WAS VIRTUALLY empty. Scraps of material and streaks of paint covered the giant oak table where Miko sat opposite Lottie, adding the final touches to Aoi Tōyō’s hair ornament with aggressive concentration.

Since Lottie’s conversation with Sayuri at the museum, they’d started to fall back into a routine again, Miko giving orders, the two of them methodically working on their pieces, and all the while Lottie waited for a message from Binah, knowing there was nothing more she could do until she got that diary. As far as she knew, Haru had made no other attempt to find the treasure; it was almost weird, like he’d given up, but Lottie wouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security. She needed to find whatever was hidden if she had any hope of getting Sayuri to work with them.

In front of her, Lottie’s sketchbook lay open, filled with drawings of the vampire cat, alongside a hideous demon Goat Man with an odd resemblance to the king—if the king were scary and had horns.

Pushing her hair back, she tried to clear her thoughts. The question remained, buzzing in her mind in a way that gave her a headache: Who was the Goat Man? And what did he want?

She’d thought the idea that everything connected back to the Maravish princess had been absurd, but the more she thought about it, the more she feared it was true.

Takeshin, Saskia, Jamie, Tompkins—you could connect the dots, and every time it took you back to the princess and Rosewood.

And if this was true, what would that do to Ellie?

“It sure would be easier to find the Master of Leviathan if we had more info.” Lottie tapped her chin with her pencil. “If only we could all join forces and share our information.” Pouting, Lottie stared down Miko, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Urusai!” she muttered, crinkling her nose like she’d smelled something bad. “Put it out of your mind. Sayuri and Emelia told us not to work with you, so I do what they say.”

It had become their own personal routine, working on costumes and bickering over Leviathan.

“If you’re not going to help us, at least let me add the tiara design to our Aoi Tōyō costumes.” Lottie tried to put on her most reasonable voice.

“No. No tiara. The energy will confuse the dance.”

“Not if Aoi Tōyō is good enough.”

“No tiara. No treasure. No Leviathan info.”

“Then what about Sayuri’s family?” It had occurred to Lottie that it might be helpful to know more about them if it was a secret passed down through the generations.

“You’re being nosy.”

“Please, Miko, I just want to help, and Sayuri didn’t give you any orders to not talk about her family.”

Miko let out a long sigh, a strand of her blue hair falling over her left eye like a scar.

“She lives with her grandfather, her dad works in Singapore, and her mother is absent.”

“Why?” Lottie knew how intrusive she was being, but she couldn’t shake off the desire to learn more.

Miko scowled again, rolling whatever she was about to say around in her head.

“They had a death in the family, her mother’s sister; they were very close. It was hard on all of them.”

“What happened to her?” she asked before she could stop herself, remembering the sad look on Sayuri’s face.

Miko looked away, tapping the table distractedly in a way that was unlike her.

“She was dealt a lot of sadness; she lost a baby. Eventually that sadness ate her up completely.”

The words clung in Lottie’s head, the awfulness of it all, how one terrible event could bleed through a whole family, spreading stains of sadness down to each generation.

“Miko-chan? Lottie-chan?” A recognizable voice called through the art rooms, and she could practically hear the smirk on his lips.

“Hai!” Miko called in response, clearly relieved to have a distraction.

Rio emerged around the corner, carrying two bags, one of which he handed to Miko, filled with materials she’d requested, and the other he slapped right on top of Lottie’s sketchbook.

Lottie looked up at him in irritation.

“This arrived for you today.” He smiled down at her as if he’d just done her the world’s biggest favor. “You’re welcome.”

She reached into the bag, fingers meeting with soft padding and paper. Miko and Rio watched her curiously as she opened the package and pulled out the contents, a gift it seemed, wrapped in canary-yellow tissue paper that reminded her of . . .

“Binah!” Lottie said.

Good luck solving the mystery.

The moment the wrapping fell away, a transporting scent took over the room. Roses, pungent and sweet and bursting with a tantalizing call back home, back to Rosewood Hall. Lili’s diary.

It was so wonderful that it ached to even hold it. Her clue, her key to hopefully solving Takeshin’s mystery and teaming up with Sayuri.

A bookmark poked out of the diary, yellow, the color of Stratus. With trembling hands Lottie turned to it to find water-damaged pages. She could just make out the words in English.

1642

In a most curious turn of events the boat has landed and we find ourselves hiding in Japan, where I am unwelcome and more welcome than ever, for I have met a girl named Kou. She is my age and comparably improper . . .

It hit Lottie like a lightning bolt. It had to be the same Kou! It had to. That’s why the name felt familiar; she’d seen it before in this very diary. Liliana had stowed away to Japan during the Sakoku period, when no foreigners were allowed to enter Japan without permission, and that’s why she’d never been found.

How did she get here? Did she know that’s where she was heading?

She turned the page, expecting more, her fingers twitching with anticipation for the whole story.

Only there was nothing. The next pages spoke nothing of Japan, or of Kou, or any such adventures. Someone had torn out all the pages. It was as if a whole section of Liliana’s life had been erased from history.

What followed instead were pages of sketches that seemed to have nothing to do with anything. Suns, moons, sparkling trees, horned catlike creatures, and magpies in great flocks, and one image that caught her eye above the others—a sword. Even on the paper it looked sharp enough to cut the world in two, with an intricate handle that showed masterful precision.

Reluctantly she pulled her eyes away from the elaborate drawings and turned to the only other page with writing on it from before Lili arrived in England.

Twirling calligraphy spread out to take up as much room on the paper as possible, but there were just seven words. A list.

A cat

A hiding place

A sword

Lottie skimmed through the pages a few more times, slowly losing hope that she would find something else, anything at all that might give her a clue to the puzzle of the hidden treasure. But no—nothing.

She very nearly didn’t notice the center of the book. It was frayed, a page removed just like the others, except it had been taken out right up to the spine with deliberate precision, barely perceptible tear marks that one could almost miss. She pondered the missing paper, running her fingers along the jagged edge, nose so close she could smell the decades of dust.

How odd, she thought, that someone would take such special care with this page only.

“What’s that?”

Lottie looked up, jolted out of her thoughts by Miko’s voice, and slammed the diary shut.

Miko watched her suspiciously, eyes narrowing over the ancient relic.

“It’s . . .” Lottie’s words caught in her throat, unable to articulate what the diary meant, what it was. “I have to go and find Ellie.”

She packed up her stuff before they could question her, Miko’s voice following her on the way out. “Don’t forget our show is very soon!”

“Yep!” Lottie shouted back, jumping over a box of paintbrushes, and feeling for the first time in a while that she was getting closer to the truth.

It should have been easy to find Ellie; she had a free day, so she was going to keep an eye on Jamie. He’d made an almost complete recovery, which was fantastic news, except for the fact that he was on the move again, so they had to keep watch in a way he wouldn’t notice, finding things they needed to do that gave them an excuse to be near him. Just as long as they kept Haru from being with him alone. It was unclear if Jamie had figured out what they were doing, but if he had, he hadn’t said anything.

Lottie had not missed a single shift, using any excuse to be by his side, relieved to see him well again, so it came as a surprise to her that Ellie was nowhere to be found.

“She went to the dojo,” Lola and Micky said in unison, wiping flour from their noses.

“But she doesn’t have class today.”

Shrugging, the twins lowered their faces in concentration over the intricate raindrop cake they were decorating.

Lottie couldn’t really blame them for not having more urgency about the whole thing, since neither of them had any idea that Haru was not to be trusted. Lottie wanted to keep it that way. The twins deserved to have a break.

After the storm, the weather had settled into an oppressive heat, humid and warm, with lone clouds rolling above the school like a sleepy shoreline.

On her way to the dojo she passed Kou Fujiwara’s museum, the glass-doored building a strange anomaly in the traditional setting. She hadn’t spoken to Sayuri since their run-in, the two of them barely even looking at each other, and whenever Lottie tried to catch her attention she was met only with cold indifference. Looking up at the statue of Kou, Lottie couldn’t help wondering how it felt to see your ancestor every day while feeling so disconnected from your family.

It wasn’t hard to find Ellie. She heard her before she saw her, a series of feral grunts echoing from the back of the dojo, from the exact place Lottie had found Jamie during the storm.

There was an animal mania blazing from the girl she saw practicing strikes, teeth bared like fangs, attacking the air with lightning precision. It didn’t feel like her princess. Ellie had vanished, in her place a twisted, bent-limbed creature.

Instead she saw Aoi Tōyō, the maiden, consumed and reborn into a powerful monster of rage and fire.

“Ellie?” Her voice dragged her princess out of whatever storm was raging in her head.

“Lottie? What are you doing here?” The speed at which she pulled the mask back over her face felt like whiplash.

“What am I doing?” Lottie spluttered. “You’re meant to be hanging out with Jamie. Is everything okay?”

Picking her stuff up, Ellie gave the grass a humorless smirk. “He doesn’t want me around, Lottie. He hates me.”

“Ellie, that’s not true, he’s—”

“The best thing I can do for him is get strong enough to prove he doesn’t need to look after me. That none of you need to put yourself in danger for me.”

“Ellie, that’s not how this works . . .”

“I don’t want to be weak anymore, Lottie. Jamie was so . . .” Her eyes misted over, the dark cloud coming low, wrapping her in the horrible memory of seeing Jamie so injured and helpless. It hadn’t occurred to Lottie how scary that must have been for Ellie, and she felt so stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

“I’ve been having these nightmares, Lottie.” Ellie’s voice had turned small. “I’m walking through the long corridor at home, the one with all the paintings of previous rulers. When I get to the framed portrait of Claude the light distorts it, and all of a sudden it’s me. I’m in the frame.” Shuddering, Ellie looked down, face obscured.

But before Lottie could reach out to her, Ellie shook herself. “I found your phone!”

“What?”

“Your phone. I found it smashed up. What happened?”

“Ollie sent me something,” Lottie confessed. “I was angry and . . . it was an accident.”

Shaking her head, Ellie looked down at her hands like she couldn’t recognize them, then, worst of all, she turned that same look of confusion on Lottie.

“I did this to you. The Lottie I know would never do something like that.” Her voice was shaking, and Lottie felt her eyes go right through her. “I’m a bad influence, just like they said.”

“Ellie, no, I told you already—”

“Didn’t you hear what Banshee said? What if it does all lead back to me? What if it is my fault?”

Banshee.

Simply hearing it took Lottie right back to Kou’s museum: Sayuri’s anger, Banshee’s determination not to join forces with them.

“We’ll solve this, Ellie. We’ll figure out who the Master of Leviathan is, and you can put this silly idea that it’s all your fault away. All we need is each other, remember?”

As soon as she said this, she knew that none of it was true. Whatever information Banshee had, they needed it. They needed Banshee’s help, and Lottie needed to start preparing for the worst. That it might all lead back to the princess of Maradova.

Ellie threw her bag over her shoulder, and Lottie could see the sweat on her brow. “It’s not good enough. I can’t keep relying on everyone like this,” she said.

“Ellie, what are you—”

“Our showcase is only two days away.” The dark cloud inched closer to Lottie when Ellie brushed past her, making her skin prickle. “If I can beat Jamie, maybe he won’t have to worry anymore.”

“Jamie doesn’t want that, Ellie, I’m sure of it. None of us do.”

But Ellie wasn’t listening; she was striding off toward the dorms with a brief wave. “I’m going to go and find someone to practice with me. I’ll see you at dinner.”

It wasn’t until Ellie disappeared out of view that Lottie realized she hadn’t had a chance to tell her about the diary, and it became very clear that there were much bigger issues to deal with before she could solve Takeshin’s secret.