17.
PRESENT DAY

Maloru's mouth was stretched into a long line as Rowan got into the driver's seat and shut the door.

"So, what happens now?" she asked. "Do I try to start the car?"

Lotte shook her head and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. There was always a certain period of time it took for an enchantment to kick in. But she strongly suspected that it wasn't only up to time. It had to do with Lotte's intentions and thoughts. She had drawn flowers in the wind on the car's motor. She didn't know why that was eventually the drawing that had made its way from her brush. It just seemed like the thing to do when she allowed her mind to be blank.

She could make this car move.

After all, a car was nothing but a tool designed for movement. If she could move a tree, she could move this.

She could even move it fast.

"Don't explode, don't explode, don't explode..." Maloru muttered under his breath.

"What," Rowan began, "are we DOOOOING—"

Her last word was a scream. Lotte felt the rush at the pit of her stomach as the car leapt forward. Her eyes snapped open. Rowan was clutching the steering wheel, turning it with the curves of the road. The scenery to the sides was a blur.

With no motor, their passage should've been silent, but there was an odd cackling sound coming from behind, like rocks breaking and branches splitting.

Lotte looked back.

Wherever the car passed, the tarmac broke open, and out of the cracks, weeds burst up as green as emeralds and as tall as shrubs. Flowers bloomed on every stem, red, lilac, yellow, white and orange.

The road ahead sloped steeply down and then steeply up, but the car didn't care to follow the lay of the land. It leapt instead.

On board, Lotte held her breath.

Crash. The car bounced on its wheels, a circle of greenery exploding around it—but it hurried on.

"Curve!" Maloru cried.

"Ah!" Rowan screamed, knuckles white on the wheel.

The road looped sideways sharply, hugging the side of a hill while the other side was a clear drop.

They were going so fast that they only had time to know it was happening before it already happened.

The car ran straight on, off the road. For a terrible moment, they were up in the air, over a deep valley dotted with sheep.

And then the car's trajectory curved mid-air. With another resonating crash, it landed on the road, continuing its mad dash onward.

"We're going to die, Lotte," Maloru cried from the back. "Your car is going to kill us."

"Don't be silly," Rowan said. "I would've said something if—we have to jump off this car at exactly four-thirty-six. Jump to left side of the road."

"Gre—at," Maloru said, his voice cracking.

"Lotte, I can't take my eyes off the road. What's the time on my watch?"

Lotte tilted her head to the side as she slid up Rowan's jacket sleeve.

"2:30," Maloru said for her.

Rowan exhaled. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. "Two hours of this," she muttered. "No big deal."

It was a bumpy ride. Twice more, the car leapt off the road, once at another sharp curve and then when Rowan temporarily lost control of the vehicle when their first tire exploded, followed rapidly by the second. She managed to cut a path through the brush on the shoulder of the road, managing to get back on it about half a mile later.

After that their passage was additionally marked by sparks and the loud razing sound the rubber-less wheels made on the tarmac. Tires or not, the car was determined to continue moving no matter what remained of it.

The two back tires gave way about ten minutes after, causing the car to zigzag and then spin a full circle before charging ahead.

"Lotte!" Rowan screamed. "Time!"

"Four-twenty-three," Maloru translated.

And after a moment, "Time!"

"Four-twenty-nine."

"Time!"

"Four-thirty-one."

And then, "Four-thirty-four."

"Get ready," Rowan roared, opening her door. Maloru opened his.

Lotte reached out, taking the wheel from Rowan.

On the side of the road was a lush green field, high with wild grass.
"Now!"

Rowan jumped, a moment later Maloru did. Only Lotte remained. She shuffled towards the door, while trying to keep the steering wheel steady in one hand and her pack in the other. It seemed to take forever. The landscape sped through the open door.  Fintan whistled shrilly, popping in and out. She remembered jumping from Sullivan tower, there was the slightest pinch of fear. With all her might, she pushed herself out.
Lotte rolled on the grass and stopped just in time to see the car run off the road again, missing the curve. It tried to correct its course in mid-air, as it had done before, but it fell short by only a little.

A very meaningful little.

The car skidded against the edge of the road and fell, out of sight.

"Lotte!" Maloru cried. She got to her feet. He was so far, but running fast. Lotte didn't know any other elves, but were they all as brilliant as Maloru? Fintan zoomed between here and there, circling round each of their heads.

I'm fine, she assured him. He relaxed his pace.

It took Rowan longer to catch up. She was panting and holding one of her boots in each hand. "Well," she said. "Wasn't that fun?"

Lotte laughed—or tried to. It wasn't quite as satisfying when her laughter was nothing but buffs of air coming out of a smiling mouth.

"I'm never getting into a car again," Maloru promised.

Rowan pointed up towards a road sign. "Look, Amoca is only five miles away."

"We could make it there by tomorrow morning," Maloru said.

"You know," Rowan said, looking carefully at the sign. "The only thing I know about Amoca is that there was that scandal back then."

Maloru stiffened.

What scandal? Lotte thought at him.

Rowan raised her eyebrows at Maloru's expression. "You know, when they discovered a big Nahilan cult...?"

It felt as if Lotte's stomach dropped into her legs. Maloru wouldn't lead them to a Nahilan cult.

"They were the ones behind the Lotte burnings in Raidox a few years back...Don't tell me you didn't hear about them?"

Nahilan was an ancient human religion that had been outlawed during the industrial revolution.
It was elf-worship; created by humans, supported by elves. Elves were believed to be gods. With their seemingly unending lifespan, their ethereal beauty and magic—they were superior to humans in all ways.

But gods and mortals shouldn't mix. The purity of the elven people could not be blighted by humanity's scourge.

Lottes were an abominations, a slight against the perfection of elves.

Therefore they had to be expunged.
Lotte turned on Maloru, screaming in her mind. How could he lead them towards a Nahilan cult?

"I can explain."

Lotte waited for an explanation while trying to get control of her nerves.

Maloru gulped. "Well..." He grasped his hands behind his back. "I thought you were an elf, so I assumed that they would—"

You'd stake my life on that? Do you think Nahilans wouldn't recognise a Lotte when they saw one?

"No, actually, now that you bring it up..."

We've come all this way, and you couldn't once bother to tell me where we were really going?

"I wasn't sure how to tell you. We can't really walk all the way to Port Kelt and there's no one else who'd help us—"

Help you, you mean.

"I had the best intentions at heart, Lotte," Maloru said, tapping his chest, desperation in his eyes and voice. "You have to believe me."

When were you planning to tell me, then?

Maloru was short on words.

What do you plan to do now that I know?

He didn't have an answer to that either.

"I don't mean to put my oar in," Rowan said. "But can't you just magic yourself to look like an elf or something, Lotte?"

Lotte blinked. Maloru's eyebrows shot up.

"It's a bit of a risk," Rowan went on, ignoring their looks. "But if these idiots are willing to help you get to Port Kelt—I mean, us—then it's a risk worth taking."

There was a long spell of silence in which Maloru was finding his toes very interesting and Lotte was glaring at him.

"So, Lotte?" Rowan asked. "Can you? Can't? Which is it?"

"She has to think about it," Maloru translated dejectedly.

Lotte wandered away, putting some distance between them and her. She did have to think about it, but not because she couldn't do it.

The moment Rowan suggested it, Lotte knew it could be done.

Of course, she'd have to make another tattoo and didn't have the right inks.

But she still had the ink with Poe's blood in it, she knew that would be a good place to start.

She had to think about Maloru's choices and how much they hurt.

Purposefully hiding the truth was exactly like lying.

It was lying.

And elves were supposed to be incapable of lying.

Unless the person who told that to Lotte was a liar.

***
9 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

"These parties are so boring," Nella Wimpet said after five minutes at the Vallishers' brunch. "I don't know how you could stand it."

"I'm very rich," Lotte said. She always knew this impressed everyone. "This is what very rich people have to do all the time."

Nella snorted and leaned in. "Do you ever have to clean your room?"

"I don't even have to clean my own paint-brushes."

Lotte thought it was a very funny retort, but Nella just blinked in confusion. Apparently, she didn't know how long it could take to clean bushes or why properly cleaning your favourite brushes was so important.

There was an awkward pause in their conversation.

"What else do you do?" Nella asked.

"Hm?"

"Aside from boring parties and painting, what do you do?"

Lotte hugged Melony. She was failing at friendship. "What else is there?"

"Do you go swimming? Or play racket-ball? Backgammon?"

Lotte shook her head to each one.
"How about hopscotch?"

Lotte shook her head again.

"You don't know hopscotch?" Nella exclaimed. She huffed and got up. "Come on." She nodded towards the front door.

The Vallishers lived on Eppel road, which was a busy street with many high end shops. It wasn't in the closed neighbourhoods where Lotte usually visited with Mr. Henri. Even though the Vallishers were well connected, they were not quite that rich.

"I shouldn't," Lotte said.

"Oh, come on," Nella insisted. "No one cares what we're doing and we can't play hopscotch in their garden."

"I'm not sure..."

Nella began making clucking noises, as if she were a chicken. Lotte didn't know why she was behaving this way. She looked around, to see if anyone was watching.

"Stop being such a scaredy-cat," Nella teased.

Lotte really didn't want to go outside. But if she had Melony with her, she assumed it would be alright. She got up and followed Nella across the room.

No one noticed when they opened the big front door.

No one paid attention when they walked outside.

The front of the Vallisher's mansion was like a small plaza. "Let's find some chalk stone," Nella said while worrying the gravel around the rose bushes with her fingers. "Here."

She picked up a stone and looked left and right before walking over to the smooth grey stone path and drawing on it with white chalk lines. She drew a diagram with nine squares and a half-circle at the end. Then she numbered the spaces from one to ten.

She handed Lotte the rock. "Here, throw the rock on the first square and then—"

A big, black, motorcar with tinted windows pulled up next to them just as Lotte tried to take the rock from Nella.

Nella threw it aside, taking a step away from Lotte with her lips pursed together.

The door of the car opened, a hand came out.

The hand was holding gun. The barrel was pointed at Lotte's face.
It only occurred to Lotte then that she hadn't seen Mrs. Wimpet at all today. Nella had simply found her, gesturing vaguely at the people round the brunch tables when she mentioned her mother.

Lotte's eyes traveled up from the gun, to the man sitting inside the car.

"Get in," said Wysley Pellen.

He pressed the gun to her forehead and with the other hand grasped her arm, pulling her inside. She hit her elbow on the door frame, her knees were bent uncomfortably beneath her. Wysley pressed her face to the leather seat.

She could feel the cool metal of the gun against her head.

The door of the black car closed with a bang. Lotte bristled and hugged Melony to her, tight, tight, tight.

"Go," Wysley commanded.

The driver made the car roar as it pulled them away.