By Monday the snow had melted. There was not a single trace of it anywhere, leaving the world glowing with dew. The air smelled fresh and clear; spring finally starting to break through the harsh winter. Lottie would have been able to enjoy it, if not for her personal shadow, also known as Samuel.
She was taking a risk with her plan to get away from him, relying on an assumption she’d made about the bodyguard and her own ability to act.
It was lunchtime, with Ellie off at fencing practice, when Lottie made her move.
Walking past the Stratus building, Lottie stopped abruptly, letting Samuel walk a few steps in front of her until he realized she’d paused.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
Samuel was not a bad person. He did his job for the Wolfsons and he did it well. His only problem was he entirely lacked a sense of humour, and he was painfully shy when it came to anything personal.
‘I can’t say,’ Lottie demanded, balling her hands into fists and doing her best to look embarrassed and angry at the same time.
‘If something is wrong, it’s my job as your –’
Lottie let out a grumble, looking down at the floor. ‘No, I can’t tell you; it’s too humiliating.’
Samuel seemed confused. He took a step forward and she could already see the sweat building on his brow, and Lottie took her chance.
‘If you insist on knowing and you’re so determined to give me absolutely no privacy, I’ve had an accident,’ she huffed, staring him down indignantly. ‘The kind that only happens once a month. Are you happy now?’
Samuel baulked, his usual stoic and calculated appearance bursting into stutters and sweating, his feet betraying him as he stumbled backwards.
It was just as Lottie had suspected. Samuel was a prude.
‘I, um, I can perhaps escort you, um, back to your dorm, if, um, that would help?’
Lottie let out an exasperated noise, rolling her eyes to make the bodyguard feel even more out of his depth. ‘There’s no time for that,’ she moaned. ‘I have a friend in Stratus. She can lend me a change of clothes and give me some personal products.’
‘I’m so sorry, yes, of course.’ Samuel tripped over his words, reaching for the Stratus tower door, which he opened for her, letting Lottie march through.
He looked as if he were about to follow when Lottie turned on him sharply. ‘Can I have a bit of privacy?’ she demanded.
Samuel was turning the colour of a tomato. ‘You can have twenty minutes to find your friend and … sort this out,’ he said. ‘I’ll be waiting outside.’
Lottie nearly let out a whoop of triumph, shocked that such a ridiculous plan had worked. She had to suppress a giggle, though; it was simply too much, the idea that someone could be so uncomfortable with such a thing.
The moment she was inside the second set of doors and out of his line of sight, she raced to the statue of Elwin, greeting him in relief like an old friend as she turned the ‘W’ on his name.
Making her way down to Liliana’s study, she remembered the last time she had made this journey, her fear and pain, and she needed to fix that.
‘What took you so long?’ Binah asked, arms crossed where she sat on the floor, already laying everything down that they would need to start back up on figuring out Claude’s plan.
‘Sorry.’ Lottie held up her hand in apology. ‘I had to make Samuel think I was embarrassed about my period and didn’t want him following me.’
‘Why would anyone be embarrassed about their period?’
‘I know!’ Lottie almost laughed, plopping herself down on the rug. ‘Jamie never even gave it a second thought. He always just carried a supply of products around for us in case we needed –’ Lottie felt her throat close up, swallowing down the aching lump that had formed. All the good feelings she’d managed to muster evaporated as she remembered why she was there.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Binah,’ she said instead, reaching over to pull her friend into a tight squeeze. ‘We have to find out what Leviathan is planning. You’re my only hope.’
‘Let’s do this,’ Binah said, squeezing her back.
After weeks of whispered conversations and secret notes, this felt like the first time both of them had been finally able to talk candidly again.
‘I have a new clue,’ Lottie announced as she pulled away, and Binah instantly lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘We only have about twenty minutes until Samuel will get suspicious so we need to brainstorm quickly.’
She pulled out her notebook and opened it, sliding it forward. ‘I found these numbers in Haru’s secret diary, with a note next to them saying “decades”, but I have no idea what they could be. The only one I recognize is my dorm room number at the top.’
Binah continued to stare at her, seeming to want to say something but changing her mind. When she finally looked down, her eyes narrowed, fingers tapping on her chin thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, yes, these do seem important.’
‘I was thinking they could be numbers he needed to remember. Maybe the middle two are PIN numbers?’
‘Too short.’
‘Or lock combinations?’
‘Possibly, but without anything to test them the information is moot.’
Groaning, Lottie fell back against the rug, sending up dust. Binah was only voicing her thoughts. Everything she’d come up with was impossible to test, and she was starting to feel like Haru had intentionally let her find the numbers just to torment her.
Binah grabbed the notebook and adjusted her glasses so she could look at the four lines of numbers better. ‘Is this an exact copy?’ She waited for Lottie to nod in affirmation. ‘The way they’re spread out seems odd to me,’ she said, pondering as she put the notebook back down again. ‘What else have we got that we could compare it to?’
Lottie counted everything they knew on her fingers. ‘We have the mystery numbers, the Hamelin Formula, Ingrid’s mention of Alexis Wolfson and his link to Claude, and Ingrid’s mention of the disposal of the king and queen.’
Binah let out a laugh that surprised Lottie. ‘We have more information from Ingrid than we’ve managed to get ourselves.’
Lottie blinked, realizing it was true, but it didn’t make her laugh – it only made her more worried. ‘Yes, everything is very weird at the moment,’ Lottie found herself saying, and Binah gave her an inquisitive look, silently asking her to explain.
‘I’m sure you’ve noticed how Ellie is pretending everything is fine? It’s worse than you could imagine. It’s one thing for them to forbid me from going after Jamie or Leviathan, but Ellie won’t even let me mention his name. She’s acting like it was back when we met, when we didn’t know anything about Leviathan or Claude.’
‘How are Ellie’s parents?’ Binah asked.
‘They’re being strangely calm. It’s a little unnerving. And none of them will tell me what the plan is. I feel like –’ Lottie cut herself off, because she didn’t want to admit that she was starting to feel obsolete.
Binah contemplated Lottie’s words, chewing them over. ‘Are we in agreement that whatever Claude’s goal is he needs Jamie for it?’ she asked.
Lottie couldn’t answer. Her mask had slipped.
‘Are you OK?’ Binah asked, putting the cursed notebook to the side. ‘We don’t have to do this if it’s too hard to think about right now. We can just talk if you want.’
‘We do have to do this,’ Lottie replied. ‘Jamie is missing and Ellie and her family are locking me out and acting like nothing has happened, and it’s making me feel like I’m going insane.’
Getting up, she made her way over to where she’d found Jamie’s note. The room felt different now. It was no longer a home of stories and mystery where she could look in the mirror and see Liliana staring back; now the room was nothing but a dark reminder of how alone she’d be if she lost her connection to the Wolfsons. She had to make sure she fixed this.
In an attempt to bring a bit of herself back into the room she reached for the velvet box in her bag and placed Liliana’s tiara under the mirror, hoping it would stop her thinking about Jamie’s awful message when she saw her reflection. It didn’t work; the tiara was not glowing like it was supposed to, and she felt like it was disappointed in her, like she was doing something wrong.
‘I’m Ellie’s Portman, and no matter what they say it’s my job to solve this, so I won’t stop until I have.’ She tried to muster some of that unstoppable force. ‘I have to for Jamie, and Ellie, and Sayuri and Saskia and Percy and everyone else Claude has hurt.’ In her mind she pictured Hanna and Midori; they were counting on her too – they’d entrusted her with the ring. With Ellie behaving as she was, it all fell on her. ‘I can’t let Claude win and take it all away from me.’
The silence that followed made Lottie squirm and she was surprised to find she was panting. She caught sight of her reflection and it felt like she was spying on someone she didn’t know.
When she turned back to Binah, her dark round eyes bore into hers, her head cocked to the side like an owl, and Lottie felt like a tiny mouse in her sights, waiting for her to make a move. She could smell the coconut body shimmer she used, and see the twinkle on her skin like gold dust.
Lottie paused before saying, ‘Let’s keep thinking.’
With a great sigh, Binah looked down at the notebook again, and Lottie thought of her tiara watching her, disappointed in something she couldn’t pin down. ‘What else might we find a clue in?’
‘I brought Oscar Oddwood’s diary back with me,’ Lottie said, wanting to get them back on track. ‘The old Wolfson Portman.’
‘And?’ Binah licked her lips now, her usual spark coming back. ‘Is there any mention of Alexis?’
Swallowing, Lottie shrugged. ‘All I could find is a throwaway line about a banquet they had to honour him in the nineteenth century, and he only mentioned it because it was the setting of some palace gossip.’
The flare in Binah’s eyes fizzled out, a sympathetic smile resting over her face that made Lottie feel like a failure.
‘Don’t beat yourself up, Lottie,’ she said, closing the notebook. ‘It’s a start. You can’t expect to solve this overnight, especially not after what you’ve been through with Jamie.’ Binah put a reassuring hand on Lottie’s thigh, and it made her jump. ‘Why don’t we go back to yours and think about something else for a while? Sometimes thinking about a problem too much can make –’
‘No,’ Lottie barked, the word jumping out of her like a hiccup she couldn’t stop. ‘I can’t stop. I’ll just keep at it myself.’
The expression that passed over Binah’s face was unlike her usual self. The rosy glow of the hanging star lights made her small frame into a golden statue, a deity that needed to be respected and would not tolerate displeasure.
‘You can’t keep doing this to me,’ Binah suddenly said, taking a tone Lottie had never heard from her before. She puffed out a long breath from her nose, the sound full of frustration. Binah shuffled over until she was directly opposite Lottie, the two of them cross-legged and sloping into each other like the sea and the shoreline. ‘If that’s really how you feel, and you insist on sacrificing yourself for everyone over and over …’ She huffed, her round cheeks gleaming. ‘Then what do you want me to do? What do you expect me to say?’
Lottie had never seen Binah talk to anyone like this, and she supposed it was because Binah wasn’t used to people ignoring her advice. It wasn’t until her glasses started steaming up that Lottie realized it wasn’t just frustration. Binah was upset.
‘I keep trying to help you, Lottie. I’m always helping you, and not because it’s an exciting mystery, but because we’re friends, and I hate seeing people lost. My whole life all I’ve wanted is to know everything so I can help everyone.’ Behind her, one of the fairy lights began to flicker, but she didn’t look away, eyes large in her round glasses, holding her gaze like a magnet. ‘This is hard for me; I’m not used to getting things wrong.’ There was barely a crack in her voice, yet it was there nonetheless, as small yet painful as a pin prick. ‘Jamie is my friend too.’
Swallowing her shame, Lottie looked around the room, at the piles of papers and theories, none of it getting them any closer to bringing Jamie back and stopping Claude. It dawned on her that her attempts to take everything on herself and solve these clues at any cost hadn’t helped anyone at all. In fact, she was reminding herself of Ellie.
‘I’m so sorry.’
The apology hurt her throat, but not because she resented it. It hurt because it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to admit. She’d done this. She was just as responsible for them losing Jamie. She’d been determined to shoulder the burden herself, trying to find a way to solve Claude’s riddles so that she could stay with Ellie and the Wolfsons, so that she wouldn’t have to be alone, and she’d ended up more alone than ever.
‘I feel so stupid, I just –’ Lottie choked on the words but persisted, pushing through her discomfort, because this wasn’t about her feelings right now. ‘I’m just overwhelmed, and it’s making me do stupid things that keep hurting people. I’m sorry.’
Binah grabbed Lottie’s pink cheeks in her warm hands, forcing her to face her. Even though Binah was no more than five feet tall, in that moment Lottie felt like her head was the whole world, and Binah was a god holding it in her benevolent hands.
‘Thank you for the apology, Lottie,’ she said. ‘But I want you to know that you can and should open up to me. You are your own person, with your own feelings, who exists outside all this and it’s selfish to keep your friends locked out. We worry about you too.’ She waited for Lottie to acknowledge she was taking this all in. ‘Now tell me what’s going on.’
The idea of offloading anything to anyone else felt like a criminal act, and yet here was Binah telling her it was more selfish to keep it bottled up. Binah’s eyes weren’t pleading or angry; Binah was looking at her with nothing but love.
Lottie relented, the acknowledgement painful and strange. ‘It’s not just Jamie. I had a fight with Ellie before he went missing. A bad one, and she won’t talk about it, or anything. It’s like she’s hiding something from me. I know she’s hiding something from me.’ She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt Binah’s thumbs wiping the salt away from her cheeks. It felt like all she was doing was crying recently.
‘It’s OK,’ Binah said. ‘It’s OK that you’re sad about this. You’re allowed to be.’
‘She said she didn’t want me, that I was just her Portman and our relationship would end when she became queen, but since we got back she’s pretending it never happened. She asked me … she asked me to pretend to be her Portman in the way it used to be, before Leviathan.’ Lottie choked on the words; having not even spoken them to herself, they felt fresh and raw like an open wound. ‘I know her. I know she was pushing me away on purpose, but I don’t understand what she’s doing now. Everything feels fake, and I can’t stop thinking what if it was always fake? What if this whole time I’ve been a complete fool, and the moment I stop being a useful Portman, they’ll throw me away?’
Binah absorbed everything, then let out her breath in one steady stream, taking her hands off Lottie’s now-dry cheeks. ‘That’s stupid. Why does it matter if you’re her Portman?’
It wasn’t the great bang Lottie had been expecting; it was quiet and controlled.
‘Because that’s all I have,’ Lottie confessed, downing a big gulp of air to steady herself. ‘Everyone keeps wanting me to figure out what I’m going to do next, to find out who I am. But until I came to Rosewood, until I met Ellie, I didn’t have a home. I don’t know anything else. Being her Portman is the closest thing I have to a family.’
‘I understand,’ Binah said, and Lottie knew that she did.
They sat in silence for a moment, Binah resting her head against Lottie’s shoulder, letting themselves digest the conversation.
‘May I offer some advice?’ Binah said at last.
Lottie smiled, and it hurt a little less now. ‘Always.’
‘You need to remember that Ellie is afraid. She’s lost part of her family, and she must feel like the Wolfson name is a bad omen. She wants you by her side, but she doesn’t want you to get hurt, especially after what happened to Jamie.’ Moving her head from side to side, she continued. ‘Maybe right now what this problem needs isn’t Lottie Pumpkin the Portman, but Lottie Pumpkin the friend. Do you understand?’
Behind Binah, Lottie caught sight of her tiara, the opal glittering, and there, above it, was Lottie’s reflection, as bright as the sun itself, her unstoppable determination.
How could she have been so stupid? It didn’t matter if she was Ellie’s Portman. It didn’t matter how useful she was. They were so much more than that.
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling back at her own image with a warm welcome. ‘I understand.’
