Princess at Heart (The Rosewood Chronicles)

It was still summer and the air was warm and gentle, blowing in through the open windows in the breakfast hall with the thick scent of freshly cut grass and roses. It would have been easier to enjoy the blooming flowers and gardens were it not for the men in black jackets marring the landscape. There were two outside the Ivy Wood gate, and the noise of the new fence being installed felt like a drill through Lottie’s skull.

I just have to make it through the day, she reminded herself. Then we can form a real plan.

Everyone agreed they needed to meet in the secret study after class the next day to recap and discuss the meeting with Ellie’s parents. In the meantime it was Lottie’s job to persuade Ellie they needed to tell the others about Haru.

Lottie should have noticed something was wrong when they’d entered the Ivy breakfast hall to find their usual place by the window had been taken. It wasn’t until she had carried her porridge and jam over to where Ellie, Jamie and Percy were sitting that she noticed the hundreds of eyes pointing at her like daggers. Hands covered whispers and giggles that made her feel self-conscious. When the rumour had spread that she was the undercover princess of Maradova – the rumour that had led to her becoming a Portman – she’d become used to people staring. But this was different. It felt angry and cruel.

She was just about to take her seat when it happened. Marcy something-or-other, a girl from her year with short red hair who’d always seemed perfectly nice, approached. Lottie could smell a sweet scent like baby powder.

‘Thanks for ruining everything, Your Highness,’ she hissed, and with no chance for Lottie to react she kicked her chair out of the way, causing Lottie to fall backwards, porridge spilling down the front of her purple tartan pinafore.

Ellie and Jamie were at her side in seconds, standing between Marcy and Lottie.

‘What’s your problem?’ Ellie growled, getting right up in the girl’s face, and Jamie put a hand on her shoulder.

‘I think it’s pretty obvious who the problem is.’ Marcy jutted her chin out at Lottie, still sprawled on the floor in shock. ‘This whole school would be better off if you’d just leave.’

For a second it looked like Ellie was getting ready to throw a punch, until Jamie yanked her back, and he towered above Marcy, looming over her in clear warning. ‘Go back to your table or I’ll drag you there by your ankles.’

Lottie could only watch, bewildered, as the Jamie she thought she knew transformed into someone angrier, someone threatening.

Marcy slowly blinked and then skittered away like a scared animal.

Ellie’s hand stretched out and Lottie took it without looking, focused on Marcy who was now rubbing her forehead, her gaze glossy and unfocused. It was then she noticed Percy, his sunken eyes wide, calculating everything he’d witnessed. She knew they were both thinking the same thing. That this was more than a simple case of angry hormones. This smelled sickly sweet and dangerous, just like the Hamelin Formula.

In one swift movement Ellie had pulled her up, bringing her into the safety of her arms.

‘Are you OK?’ the princess and her Partizan asked in unison.

Opening her lips to reply an automatic yes, Lottie found herself staring out at the dining hall instead. The long tables were lined with faces all staring at her, all waiting to see what she’d do next.

With as much dignity as she could muster, Lottie let go of Ellie’s hand and marched over to serve herself another bowl. ‘I think I’m going to go and change and eat my breakfast upstairs,’ Lottie replied, using every ounce of her princess training to save face, the edges of her smile ready to crack.

A princess would not waver in the face of adversity, she told herself; one hint of weakness and they’d pounce on it. At her side she sensed Jamie and Ellie daring anyone to say anything. Safely behind the dining-hall doors, they waved Percy off and he signed to Jamie that he’d see him soon.

‘You’re not going to finish your breakfast?’ Lottie asked, and Jamie shook his head.

‘I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to hang around in there. I don’t want to cause any more of a scene.’

Ellie nodded in agreement, but the words made Lottie shiver. It was unlike him to be so volatile, and it transported her back to the day she’d cut her hair away, sitting on the bench in the sun, the way his hand had brushed her cheek. The first time she’d seen that fire in his eyes.

Internally she shivered at the memory, a part of her desperate to know what he’d been thinking, or if he thought of the moment at all, but she pushed the feeling down, waving Jamie goodbye with a lingering look, and followed Ellie to their dorm with her sad-looking bowl of plain porridge and banana.

The moment the door shut, Ellie’s face curled into a furious snarl. ‘I cannot believe she did that to you,’ she growled, pacing the wooden floor like an animal prowling the corners of her cage. ‘I won’t have anyone talk to you like that, Lottie. No one.’

Ellie was practically blowing steam out of her ears, but Lottie wasn’t worried about Marcy. She was worried about what had made Marcy behave like that, and she had to admit she was also starting to worry about Jamie.

Ellie turned, giving Lottie some privacy to change while she stared daggers out of the window. Halfway through zipping up the pinafore over her fresh shirt, Lottie felt the words bubble out of her.

‘Do you think Jamie has been behaving oddly?’ she asked without really thinking it over; it sounded childish and irrelevant in light of the matter at hand. ‘I mean,’ she said, correcting herself quickly, ‘I think we need to make sure we’re paying attention to him as much as we are everything else, especially after everything he went through in Tokyo. I just want to know he’s OK.’

Framed by the wispy curtains on either side of the balcony, Ellie turned, looking dramatic and ghoulish in her half-buttoned shirt with her inky-black hair. If Lottie hadn’t been so nervous, she would have wanted to paint her.

‘Do you have to worry about everyone else all the time?’ There was a bitterness to Ellie’s words, something festering beneath them that had nothing to do with what had just taken place.

Lottie was about to relent, but she shook her head, knowing what Ellie was really upset about. ‘I’m going to get us some coffee so you can calm down.’ She paused at the door and turned back to her princess, who was still riled. ‘It’s not your fault, Ellie,’ Lottie said sternly, and she could see from the way Ellie flinched that she’d touched a nerve.

Grabbing two reusable coffee cups, Lottie headed to the kitchen, thankful to find it quiet, and filled both mugs, one with a black coffee and three sugars, and her own with a caramel latte. She smiled to herself as she put the lids on, thinking fondly on what an unlikely pair she and Ellie were, only the feeling quickly turned into something else when she thought of the tired inky stains under her princess’s eyes.

Lottie had to believe she was doing the right thing, that Ellie would be OK and that they’d get through this together, like they always did. Nothing had knocked them down before.

Unstoppable, she thought, her fingers reaching for her newly cut hair, which reminded her of her ancestor. Already feeling better, she made her way back to their room.

As she was turning into the stairwell and past the post nook, she stopped short.

There was something in her cubbyhole. Above the label for her name, peel-thin and almost unnoticeable, there was a letter. Placing both cups down on the hallway dresser, she peeked inside to find a skinny manila envelope with no address, only a name. Her heart skipped a beat – the letter was addressed simply to The Princess of Maradova.

At first she expected something mean, another student angry about the security changes, but she could sense something more sinister. The words were written with deliberate and painstaking elegance.

Breath ragged with anticipation, she flipped open the envelope, and could smell it as sweet as a warm summer’s day. It made her nauseous – there was only one person who carried that scent around with them.

Slowly, like it might bite her, she removed the letter, bile at the back of her throat, because she already knew who it was from, and it couldn’t be anything good.

It was brief and to the point, and made all the blood in Lottie’s body turn to ice.

To the princess,

Now you have witnessed what we can do, I’m sure you are eager to avoid any more unpleasantness.

Meet me outside the Conch pool at lunch.

Do not tell anyone. I’ll know if you do, and you certainly won’t want to be the cause of any more problems for your friends.

Any good feeling she’d managed to cling to crumbled to dust inside her. Invisible fingers clasped her throat, choking all the air out of her, and they wouldn’t let go, even when she forced herself to take a deep breath in.

This was Haru’s work, it had to be – and the threat was clear, stealing any plan she had to tell the rest of the group about him. What would he do to anyone if she told them? What was he capable of?

She thought of Dom, the boy who’d been subject to the reporter’s attack, and Marcy, her face cruel and unflinching as she stared at Lottie. She couldn’t let that happen to any more people; their safety came first.

With a bubble of panic building in her chest, Lottie squeezed her eyes shut, visualizing her tiara on top of her head, the delicate weight of it, the cool silver against her skin, and she conjured the words that would calm her: Be kind, be brave, be unstoppable. But even her mantra couldn’t cover up the truth, because this was the most alone she’d ever been in her life.

Vampy greeted Jamie outside the boys’ dorm, yellow eyes materializing out of the shadows as the cat weaved between his legs, still angry with him and mewling at the indignation of being abandoned for two whole days.

‘Hello, you big spoiled brute.’ Jamie picked up the great lump of a cat, letting Vampy rub against his face possessively.

The room he shared with Percy was back to the way they liked it, everything for school kept in painstaking order, while their shared collection of books flowed over every surface. Laid dog-eared on Percy’s bed was the copy of Frankenstein Jamie had lent him next to a notebook filled with annotations. It was a relief of sorts to be back at Rosewood, to hear Percy’s gentle breathing at night like a lullaby. He sat on his bed, muscles slowly untensing after what had happened in the breakfast hall. Absent-mindedly rubbing Vampy’s tummy while the cat continued to purr aggressively, he closed his eyes, pretending for just a moment that everything was normal, that there was no Leviathan, no Claude, no Marcys or reporters, nothing in the world for Ellie or Lottie to be afraid of.

When he finally got up, the cat let out an outraged hiss.

‘Don’t you judge me,’ Jamie growled back, before opening his wardrobe. Double-checking he couldn’t hear anything from the corridor outside, Jamie pushed at the back, the wooden panelling coming loose with a click. Curving his fingers round carefully, Jamie pulled the false panel away to reveal a hidden back. All along the dark oak was a spiderweb of information linked with a net of string to connect the pieces. Over the past week Jamie had been weaving together every clue and item they had, from the symbol Leviathan used to their obsession with his princess’s family. Now he was going to add everything he had learned the night before. He wrote the words out carefully on bits of paper.

Why did Ingrid bring up Alexis Wolfson?

What do they want with the king and queen?

He was going to leave it at that when he remembered Lottie’s face, the small pout she’d made when they’d interrogated him about how he was feeling in the car, and he added one more bit of paper.

Why am I Ellie’s Partizan?

He began sticking these new clues to the spiderweb, and in the very centre was what he hoped it all might lead him to. Carved into the wood with a penknife were four simple words that made his blood pump with the promise of vengeance, for Lottie, for Ellie, and for everyone close to him that Leviathan had tormented.

Where is my enemy?