Lottie had never felt so guilty in her whole life. She needed to go somewhere she knew would cause suspicion. Unfortunately the only distraction she had was Jamie, even if it made her feel like the worst person in the world. So she’d sent Jamie to Haru, knowing it was the only way to guarantee he wouldn’t follow her.
It had taken a little bit of snooping, but it wasn’t long until she heard about an Ivy student resembling Ellie’s description who had been seen wandering into the mysterious back buildings of the art department, with rumours spreading that perhaps she’d joined the secret underbelly of Rosewood’s cult artists.
The Rosewood art facilities were some of the best in the world. The clear white hallways with their introspective abstract paintings and marble statues were more like a museum than a school. Every piece was an insight into the creative minds that dwelled within the school. On a regular day walking through the echoing mezzanine was peaceful, with soft chatter coming from the classrooms and the smell of wet clay or sulphur spilling over from the pottery room’s kiln.
But this was not a regular day, and with begrudging acceptance Lottie ventured past classrooms she knew, and through the doors at the back that would take her to the old building. As soon as the doors boomed shut behind her, the world turned tight and claustrophobic, rooms overflowing with junk and old art pieces that could be scavenged and claimed by other students like an ocean of debris blocked her path.
Still Lottie went further, imagining Ellie making this same trip weeks ago, until she found herself at the centre of the maze, at the winding staircase leading up to what used to be the photography department. The wood was misshapen into waves, and chains hung over most of the doors, and others were barred like they were keeping in some terrible Kraken. Only one door showed any semblance of use, with three baby-doll arms reaching out of the cast-iron fixtures round a closed peephole, looking like trapped souls in a witch’s den.
I will be kind, I will be brave, I will be unstoppable, Lottie repeated to herself, lifting her fist to knock at the cursed door. However, before she had so much as made a single tap, the door flew open and Lottie nearly tumbled into a girl with blood-red hair and eyebrows covered in piercings, drawn on so thick they looked like creatures with tiny metal legs.
Blinking away her shock, the red-haired girl’s face split into a wide grin, a tongue piercing glinting. ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the little princess herself.’
‘I need to talk to you about someone who came to visit a few weeks ago,’ Lottie said, refusing to let herself be intimidated.
‘You’re in luck,’ the girl said, moving out of the way to let Lottie through into the pitch-black corridor beyond. ‘Stephanie said we were to let you in immediately when you finally came.’
Lottie gulped, a cold chill running through her at the idea they’d been expecting her, but nonetheless she went on, feeling around in her satchel for the box that held her family tiara, the shape of it through the fabric reminding her not to back down.
When Lottie pushed the second door open, she was at once consumed by a kaleidoscope of deep blue and emerald lights, the air turning cool with the salty-sweet smell of brine, like she’d been submerged under the sea. Along the walls, doll limbs reached out from where they were trapped.
‘Back so soon? Oh!’ And there she was, one of the most beautiful girls Lottie had ever seen, looking up at her through feathered eyelashes as she leaned back in a black-velvet throne covered in twisting shells glued over the fabric.
The sea witch.
The thought flared in Lottie’s head without warning and her hand shot up to her neck like she was in danger of losing her voice, and she had – her throat was so dry she could hardly make a squeak.
‘Oh, Gem, you’ve caught me a little fish,’ Stephanie cooed. ‘Paris, Max, say hi to the little fish.’
Lottie found herself being pushed further into the Parlour, shoulders being pressed down, forcing her into a seat opposite Stephanie. Her vision swimming at the flickering lights, Lottie was vaguely aware of two people raising their heads in greeting before returning to their gruesome pieces of art, but her focus stayed trained on Stephanie.
‘I need to ask you about a henna tattoo I think you gave a friend of mine,’ Lottie began, swallowing down her nerves like she was gasping for air. ‘I need to know what tattoo you gave to Ellie Wolf.’
She had to know for sure what the tattoo said. If Ellie had really got the Maravish for ‘painful self-sacrifice’ etched on to herself, then Lottie had no choice but to confront her princess about it, no matter the cost.
Stephanie’s eyes pinged up to hers like an elastic band, black fingernails coming up to wind in hair darker than the bottom of the ocean. ‘I deal in secrets, little princess,’ she murmured, a wry smile awakening on her lips at the taste of the word. ‘And that also means keeping the secrets of others.’
It hit Lottie like a cannonball, knocking the breath out of her. She knew.
One thing was clear – it was important enough to Ellie that she’d traded her secret identity, which meant the girl in front of her knew Lottie was a fake.
‘Now, if you have any secrets of your own, we have plenty of services we can offer you.’ Stephanie gestured to a board at the back of the room, bullet points marks with skull motifs.
☠︎ Tattoos
☠︎ Piercings
☠︎ Acquisitions
☠︎ Removals
☠︎ Grades
☠︎ Contraband
Lottie squinted at the board, as if focusing harder on it might make it make sense.
‘She’s confused.’ The boy – Paris – turned and laughed, revealing duplicate eyes painted immaculately below his own, giving the illusion of a spider’s face. ‘Why don’t you give her a demonstration?’
Appearing like a cloud of smoke, Max kneeled in front of Lottie’s chair, their height making them at eye level with each other, even though Lottie was sitting. So mesmerized by Max’s long eyelashes, Lottie took an embarrassingly long time to realize that they were holding her family tiara.
‘Well, that is very pretty,’ Stephanie mused, her blue lips curling in wonder.
Lottie didn’t give a second thought to how they’d got it, or when; she only felt a white-hot panic that she had to get it back.
‘Give me that,’ she demanded, reaching out, but Max only cocked their head to the side as they pulled it out of reach, the opal glittering.
‘Give you what?’ they asked, feigning confusion, and Lottie watched in horror as their hand passed over the tiara and it vanished.
‘Ta-da!’ Gem declared, holding her arms out like a magician’s assistant showing off the amazing trick. ‘Cool, huh?’ There was a thrill in her eyes as she gazed at Max, enthralled by this mean little trick.
‘OK, stop teasing the poor thing.’ Stephanie’s voice rolled through the room like the tide, making her three minions stand to attention.
‘Here!’ With one swift movement, Max held a mirror in front of Lottie, revealing the tiara on her head, nestled in her tousled hair.
Lottie could only gasp at her own reflection, speechless.
‘Acquisitions and removals,’ Max said, shrugging as if it were all very simple. ‘We steal things and we make things disappear.’
‘If you ever have anything you need us to get for you, or anything you need to disappear, all it takes is a good secret and it’s done,’ Stephanie explained, clapping her hands in a way that felt as if she were casting a spell. ‘So, what will it be?’ she asked, flashing her teeth in a shark-toothed smile.
It was so obvious that Lottie could see it laid before her – Haru’s box. Her tongue tingled with the desire to ask them to steal it for her. One secret and she could solve this and finally find out what he was hiding in there. But there was one problem; she couldn’t bring herself to share the only secret that would be good enough for such a job.
‘I think I’ll take my leave,’ Lottie said, standing up quickly.
‘Suit yourself,’ Stephanie called after her. ‘I’ll be here when you change your mind.’
Wandering out of the art block in a daze, Lottie was disorientated to find it was already dark. The paths were lit up by soft orange floor lights, but in this part of the school there was something creepy about them, like an anglerfish was leading her into its jaws.
Her head was still sore over her failure to get any information about Ellie’s tattoo. She was lost, no closer to solving Claude’s strange letters or figuring out how to help Ellie.
‘Excuse me, Princess.’
Lottie turned to find a Year One girl staring up at her, a vacant expression spinning in her eyes, not quite focused, and all Lottie’s nurturing instincts kicked in.
‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’
The girl continued to stare up at her, her blank face like a fish out of water, and strangest of all was her dried lips and out-of-place hair, almost as if she had lost all sense of her body.
‘Are you hurt?’
Without warning, the girl’s hand shot out as fast as a frog’s tongue, her fingers wrapping tightly round Lottie’s wrist, and with a jerk she pulled Lottie behind the art building.
Lottie tried to prise herself free, clawing at the girl’s fingers, but she kept pulling, dragging Lottie with surprising strength past the walls and windows of classrooms and through the school grounds, far away from other students. That’s when Lottie smelled it, the sickly-sweet smell making her nose crinkle in disgust. It was a scent she loathed to recognize – the Hamelin Formula.
With one last tug, the girl pulled Lottie into a narrow gap between the old and new art block where only a sliver of light could reach them, and where two eyes glinted out at her from behind brown glasses.
Haru grabbed Lottie’s shoulder, righting her before she fell to the ground from the girl’s aggressive thrust. She was so shocked she could hardly move, slowly coming to terms with how stupid she’d been. She’d got cocky, been lulled into a false sense of security, forgetting that Haru was still a threat, that he was always there, watching them, and at any moment he could use that formula on one of the students like the poor Year One girl who continued to sway on the spot.
‘Stay right there,’ he called over Lottie to the poisoned girl behind them and Lottie glared up at him. ‘Don’t worry.’ He shrugged, letting go of her at last. ‘It’ll leave her system completely in about a week.’
Shaking off her confusion over why Haru had ended his hour with Jamie early, she became angry at what he’d done to this girl. ‘You promised you wouldn’t hurt anyone else.’ Lottie had never considered herself the type to growl, but right now she was dangerously close to it.
His gaze hit her hard and sharp, pinning her in place. ‘And I seem to remember you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone about my involvement with Leviathan.’
There was not an inch of the sweet, soft mask Lottie had become so accustomed to. This was Haru at his core, simmering and dangerous, and it had Lottie wondering what he and Jamie had talked about to get him so worked up.
‘What are you –’
‘Come now, Princess – let’s not waste time lying.’ He waved away whatever she had been about to say, leaning against the wall, his long limbs blocking her way out. ‘I know you’ve been discussing the letters with your little friend Binah. What I do find curious is that you don’t seem to have told any of your other inner circle about them.’
Lottie felt her knees going weak and a sick feeling in her stomach at the realization of just how much Haru knew. For a nauseating moment she feared he might even know the one thing he must never learn, that Ellie was the real princess.
Haru began tapping his chin, pretending he was thinking. ‘I’ll allow this one, I suppose, if it helps you solve it faster, but let me do a little demonstration for you,’ he declared, his arm shooting out and making Lottie flinch. ‘Watch what happens. This is how I could have all your friends look at you, so let this be a lesson not to tell anyone else, OK?’ He gave her a wink like this was just a fun class, but Lottie recoiled.
The younger student came forward to stand at the Partizan’s side, and like a doting parent Haru beamed down at her. ‘Repeat after me,’ he commanded, and the girl nodded along. Her dead-eyed stare made her look like a mannequin. ‘You hate the princess of Maradova.’
‘I hate the princess of Maradova,’ she spat back with all the venom of real revulsion.
Until now Lottie had only ever seen the effects of the Hamelin Formula from a distance, the awful lingering symptoms, the way it made people sick and confused, but this, up close, was scarier than any nightmare her brain could conjure.
‘She’s mean and scary, and we want her gone,’ Haru went on.
‘She’s mean and scary, and I want her gone.’ Upon repeating this, the girl turned to Lottie and began to shake, taking fearful steps back until she’d planted herself behind Haru for protection.
‘No, this is wrong. Stop!’ Fists balling at her sides, Lottie said the only thing she could think of that might get through to Haru. ‘Stop it or I’ll tell Jamie.’
This seemed to grab the Partizan’s attention, his head cocking to the side curiously, until another sickening smile cracked his face like a scar. ‘You’ll tell him what exactly?’ he taunted, taking a step towards her. ‘How you made a pact with me to throw him under the bus?’
‘That’s not what –’
‘Certainly looks that way to me.’
He stared down at her, his dark eyes glinting in the moonlight, and she could taste the guilt, bitter and sharp, because maybe Haru was right.
‘I can see this has upset you.’ He almost whispered the words at her, his mask gradually climbing back over his face until she hardly recognized the happy-go-lucky boy in front of her. ‘Perhaps this gift will cheer you up.’
From inside his jacket, Haru pulled out two manila envelopes and held them out to her. They were numbered. ‘These are your last clues before we reveal the truth and take action.’
Lottie felt a panic she hadn’t been prepared for course through her. She still wasn’t even vaguely close to solving the story – how could this be the last of them?
‘You will open the second only after you have solved the first. Good luck, Princess.’ Haru pushed the envelope into her hand, his mouth coming close to her ear so she could feel his voice like a curse. ‘And remember I’ve got my eye on you.’
