11.
10 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

Mr. Henri continued to deliver Lotte gifts and made only the smallest attempts at conversation. He was doubtlessly quite rich since he wore a different suit each time she saw him.

He dressed differently from most gentlemen of his station. Gentlemen, Lotte noticed, typically dressed in boring colours ranging from brown to grey.

But Mr. Henri always stood out in the sharp cut of his suits and the addition of colour. For instance, on that day his suit was such a pale grey, it was almost white. His jacket was trimmed with pale pink silk on the lapels and he wore a buttoned down fuchsia blouse with a matching handkerchief in his pocket and a matching ribbon in his hat. His bow-tie was grey to match his jacket, and even the buckles on his shiny leather shoes were accented with pink thread.

He lingered longer that time. He sat on the bench at her side and twiddled his thumbs. Lotte stared firmly ahead, annoyed at her curiosity. What was he going to do next?

He held a shimmering black shopping bag in his hands and placed it on the bench at her side. "I would like to show you something," he said slowly. "Use this and meet me tomorrow on the steps of the Kardioll Gallery at noon. What I want to show you is inside the gallery."

And that was all.

He smacked his thighs and rose to his feet, nodding his head firmly towards Lotte before striding away.

When he was gone, she took the bag and examined its contents. There was a sensible black dress, white stockings, soft black trainers, a sturdy black coat with a deep hood, a black beret and a comb.

Lotte didn't have much use for clothes, but she knew that dressed as a street urchin she couldn't come anywhere near the prestigious Kardioll Gallery.

She sometimes looked at the paintings through its grand windows. The gallery was the centrepiece of Karioll square. It was  a massive glass tower that was said to have no stairs. Instead, the floors spiralled up and up, the walls lined with paintings and sculptures. Supposedly, there were inner halls too. There were cafes and restaurants inside Kardioll gallery.

Lotte felt very worried when her curiosity got the better of her. When noon of the next day came round, she stood on the steps to Karioll gallery in a new dress and shoes with her hair combed and her hands clasped nervously together.

The worst of it was the fact that she missed the protective folds of her overlarge jacket, though she had to admit that after a few months of constant wear it had begun to smell.

Lotte had even made the concentrated effort of washing her face and all the other bits of her body. When she had lived in the orphanage, she had bathed quite regularly, more readily than the other children.

Cleanliness was the kind of thing she'd never thought she'd miss until it wasn't an option.

It was odd to look at her reflection in shop windows. She looked quite different without the layer of grime.

"Ah, you came," said Mr. Henri's voice from the top of the steps. He nodded towards her and then to the entrance of the gallery. "Shall we?"

Lotte let him lead the way, making sure to keep a step behind him. She kept a wary eye on their surroundings, watching everything at once.

The entrance hall of the gallery was so large, it still felt like standing outside. The ceiling so many stories above her head it might as well have been a slightly smaller sky.

The marble floor was milky white, with grey veins running through it. Six attendants rushed forward, lacquered shoes clicking loudly.

"Mr. Treebald!" one of them cried. "We did not know you were coming."

Neither did I," Mr. Henri said in a lofty voice.

"Your visits are always welcome," another attendant said, brimming with sticky politeness. "What can we show you today?"

"We shall just be visiting the main hall today," Mr. Henri replied.

At the plural pronoun, the attendants gazes all turned towards Lotte, who stiffened.

Mr. Henri smirked and said nothing to their inquisitive looks. "Shall we, little dove?" He gestured towards the sloping ramp that would take them to the main gallery hall.

Lotte let him lead the way, and followed. Behind her, she heard a gasp. "Markal," said one of the lady attendants. "Do you think that maybe she's—" She stopped speaking abruptly when she noticed Lotte staring.

The grand gallery hall was paved in peach-coloured marble with stark white walls. The paintings on the wall were flanked by bright lights, bringing every detail into focus.

Lotte clasped her hands to her mouth to stop herself from gawking. She completely forgot about Mr. Henri. About everything, really. Rather than just paintings, Lotte could see intentions, emotions, concentration and hope. She could feel on her body every stroke of every paintbrush. A cacophony of whispers swarmed her mind, faint swirls of colour appeared in the air before each painting.

It was overwhelming, excruciatingly exciting and strangely liberating. Lotte ran up to each painting, coming as close as the string separator allowed, and gave each one her full attention. There was a conversation happening between herself and each creation. She wandered inside each one, losing herself in a world of pigment and shape. A world that surpassed the words she couldn't speak.

Time passed. A very long time. When Lotte could finally pull herself out of her adventures and explorations, the sky in the massive windows had turned peach like the floor and Mr. Henri was sitting on a chair nearby, reading a book.

He looked at her intently. "You are a very peculiar child. Come."

He rose and began stalking forward through the hall. Lotte followed, sneaking longing glances at the paintings that they passed.

"Here we are," he said, gesturing towards a small black-and-white pencil sketch in a slim dark frame. It was the drawing of the blue-bells she had sold to Mr. Henri. The plaque underneath read that the drawing was called Stubborn Spring and explained that even the wretched city of Raidox could not overcome every flower. The plaque claimed that the artist was seven-year-old orphan named Poppin and that it had won the bronze medal of Lascery.

Lotte blinked up at Mr. Henri.

"Ah, you're speechless," he said. "Well...you always are. I see you can read, at least. Can you write? No? I apologise for taking liberty with your name, you haven't given me one."

Lotte had never had a name before. She knew 'Lotte' only meant 'half' in elven, it wasn't a proper name, just an adjective.

Poppin sounded quite silly, though, like something you'd call a pet. But she reckoned most people didn't get a choice when it came to their names.

"You see," Mr. Henri went on. "I am, ah... what some would call, a patron of the arts. I've loved art for many years, and I'm known for my eye. It has been a while, little Poppin, since something has moved me so, and I wasn't wrong."

He bent slightly so that she could hear his when he lowered his voice. "This drawing, which I paid a measly amount for, has sold for four thousand daies."

Four thousand daies.

Lotte couldn't even imagine that amount. One would have to have an entire bag just to carry around so much money.

"I can house you, feed you, cloth you. You will get the best education under my care, the best of everything and you will be able to draw as much as you please. You will not have to worry for a thing, little one. I will give you everything, and in return, you will share your gift with the world. What do you say, child?"

To say she was tempted was an understatement. It was freedom to create offered to her on a silver platter. She was ready. Ready to grow. Ready to change. Ready to live somewhere other than the streets.

But, she was also a Lotte.

She looked around the gallery hall, they were all alone, out of sight.

She removed the beret from her head and carefully tucked her hair behind her pointed ears.

Now he could see. The narrow, delicate shape of her face, her wide, angular bright brown eyes, complete with the pointed ears. Lotte was not an elf, but she was far removed from humans too.

Mr. Henri quickly grabbed her beret from her hand and pushed it on her head so that it very nearly covered her eyes. He spared a few glances around, and then gave her a firm shake of his head. "Do you think I don't know?" he hissed. "Men like me don't make business endeavours without first finding the paper trail. But I made sure to burn that trail, and you will do well to promise me no one will ever find out what you truly are."

Somehow, Lotte preferred this cold determination over the flowery facade Mr. Henri wore earlier. She preferred to look him in the eye and know what she was seeing.

The street would always be there should Lotte need to escape. Everything she thought she needed was about to be given to her.

She nodded her head.

***

PRESENT DAY

"What's that smell?" Maloru asked.

The day was almost over, which meant that Lotte's elven companion was searching for a good spot to plant himself. They were climbing a steep hill when the air suddenly became hazy.

"Smoke," Lotte said, covering her face with her scarf. She had knit the scarf herself, and wove an air-purifying enchantment into it.
Following her example, Fintan curled into one end of the scarf.

"Come here," she called to Maloru, pulling him towards her and giving him to other end of her scarf.

"Ah, that's better."

"I'll make you one of these," she said.

Up and up they climbed, going slower now that they shared the same scarf. The smoke was slightly thinner on the top of the hill since the wind pushed it down into the valley behind them.

The land was spread at their feet. Lotte could not believe what she was seeing.

A bright orange line separated the dusky sky from the charred black earth. It stretched out as far as the eye could see. The valley below was littered with debris from human airships and...

Maloru whimpered at her side. Lotte covered his eyes. "Don't look," she said.

There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Elves—dead elves—scattered over a wide trampled field like broken dolls.

In the centre of the field was a deep, smouldering crater that must've been as large as an entire city block.
And the woods on all sides were blazing.

Lotte ducked, pulling Maloru down with her as an airship passed overhead. It glided towards the blaze, emptying hulls filled not with bombs, but with water.

"They can't control the fire," Maloru said, his voice high with panic.

"Idiots," Lotte muttered under her breath. "Savages..."

Poe had warned her not to pick any side of her heritage. She was equal parts human and elf.

But how could she not despise the humans after seeing this? After living among them and knowing what they were like?

"Lotte," Maloru said, shaking beside her. "Lotte, they can't control the fire and it's almost night."

She sucked in a breath and looked at him.

"The fire is climbing the hill, Lotte." His body was rigid with fear. "Lotte, I can't...I can't..."

No, his body wasn't rigid with fear. He was becoming a tree.

"No, Maloru, you have to hold on," Lotte said. "We have to run." The fire was wild. It didn't heed the humans' attempts to change its course. It would consume everything in its path.

"I... can't," were the last words he said to her before turning into a tree.