20.
9 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

The shot hit the back of the car where, only a moment ago, Lotte had been. She moved in a flash, though her little legs felt sluggish.

The man spun round, leaping after her as she began to run. He lifted the gun, taking aim—

BANG!

The bullet grazed Lotte's cheek. It felt like a bite and then it stung as hot red-flecked golden blood dripped down her cheek. She didn't want to look back, but she did. Just a glance, over her shoulder.

The gun was trained on her. He would get her this time. For whatever reason, he was utterly determined to make this an execution.

Lotte cringed, eyes shutting despite herself as the third shot rang.
Something hit the ground at her side, making the sand leap up into the air.

Someone had pushed the man. A girl Lotte's height, with the same colour hair as Lotte, wearing the same dress, the same shoes and...
A girl just like Lotte stood before him, but she wasn't Lotte.

She was Melony. Lotte knew this by instinct.

Melony had transformed into Lotte's doppelgänger. She was saving Lotte.

The man stood frozen. His face suddenly betrayed emotion, a mask of terror and confusion. He pointed his gun at Melony, then at Lotte, then at Melony again.

"Let us go," Lotte said, seizing on this moment of doubt. "Just run and leave us."

"A witch..." The man rasped. "A freaking witch."

"Run now. Let us go."

"You'll tell the coppers about me," the man sneered. "I'll just kill you both."

Melony started to run.

Bang, bang, bang, click, click, click, click, click.

Lotte felt a painful kick to her body with each bullet, hands flying to her belly.

She staggered to her knees.

Melony's broken porcelain body fell to the ground with a hollow thud.

The man, now without bullets, saw something in Lotte's face that terrified him. He threw down his gun and began to run.

"Melony," Lotte cried, crawling towards her fallen form. "Melony." She reached out and rocked her empty body.

It was gone. Whatever had entered Melony when Lotte had fixed her—it was gone forever. Lotte's chest felt like it had been cleaved open.

She wouldn't be able to fix Melony again.

She turned her over. The way the doll wore Lotte's face sent an eerie chill over her skin. She saw death for the first time, and it was her own death.

The sirens flashed around her. A police car, another and then another arrived until there were five of them. The constables and detectives came out, marching towards Lotte, who had been crying, her hands filled with red ruby tears.

She thought about the cut on her cheek, now crusted with dry blood. Ah, her cover was blown. They were going to know what she was.

She looked right into the face of the first constable, but he looked past her at Melony's broken body, a frown creasing his face. He took off his hat mournfully, holding it to his heart.

"It's alright," Lotte croaked. "She wasn't r—real. She was magic. She was my... my..." Lotte's voice cracked as a new wave of sobs tore through her chest.

He didn't appear to want to listen.

A second man appeared at his shoulder. "Ah...such a shame."

"No, she wasn't me," Lotte said, getting to her feet.

But for some reason, neither of them would look at her.

A third one joined them. "I've sent Jerry's team with the dogs after the suspect." He stood with his back to Lotte and to Melony's body.

"Are you alright, detective? You're looking pale."

"She's the same age as my daughter."

"It's the kind of day when you have to hug your kids tighter, eh?"

"I heard she was famous..."

"Yeah, an artist. A prodigy. Saw her on the news couple-a times"

"Such a waste."

"I'll get him," promised the one who was the detective. "I will get the bastard." He heaved a sigh. "Right, tape the area, start cataloging the crime scene. We've got a long day ahead of us."

Lotte ambled over to the detective. "Excuse me, sir?"

His eyes went right through her.

"Can't you see me?"

She waved her hand before his face.
"Can't you hear me?" she asked.

She touched his arm. He paled even further and shuddered, looking at Melony's body on the floor.
"You really can't..."

Lotte stared at the dead porcelain girl. There was no blood on her. She could see the holes the bullets had made, hollow and empty. Maybe from far away, people could mistake her for a dead girl, but up close it was obvious. That thing on the floor hadn't been alive.

At least, not in the biological sense.
Lotte clutched her handfuls of ruby tears.

Exactly what was going on here?

***
PRESENT DAY
It felt so good to shower. Lotte lost count of the days that had passed since she jumped out of her window in Sullivan tower and flown away.

As a fugitive, every minute was a week, every day a lifetime. The dirt and grime of the great outdoors soaked off her in black rivulets.
Fintan had followed her into the bathroom, but he was being funny. He had his face buried underneath his tail when she was without her clothes on.

She felt pure and new as she towelled off.

Until she saw her reflection in the full-length mirror.

As an elf, her arms and legs were corded with lean muscle, her stomach was a chart of neat, boxy abs. Other than her breasts—that stood as perfectly round as apples—there was not an ounce of softness to her. Her face was all sharp angles and exaggeratedly large eyes, making her seem as fearsome as a cheetah ready to spring.

She combed the few tangles out of her reddish hair. It was a much bolder red than Poe's had been. The pointed tips of her ears were so long, they went over her head and curled backwards. She touched them tentatively. If this was truly an illusion, she shouldn't have been able to feel them, but she did.

She squeezed her eyes and turned away from the mirror. It bothered her, it really bothered her. She missed the velvety humanity of her real body. The sloping curves, the imperfect angles, the childish roundness of her cheeks.

Wrapped in a towel, she moved to the bedroom, Fintan fluttering after her.

Fresh clothes had been laid out for her on the bed. Rowan lay by the pile of clothes, staring at the ceiling. She had also showered and looked rather relaxed.

She watched Lotte's back as she changed—a little too intently
Lotte finished putting on her trousers and was in the midst of putting on a shirt. She gave Rowan an inquisitive look.

"Ah, sorry, I was just trying to make out that tattoo."

Lotte showed her the tattoo on her arm. It had healed over already, which was, even for Lotte, remarkably fast.

Or perhaps it was the illusion?

"No, not that one..."

Lotte showed her the illusion tattoo she had made on her stomach the day before. It was rimmed with gold—the elf version of raw red.
"Oh, I didn't know you had a third one. Then what's the one on your back?"

Lotte knit her brows quizzically.
Rowan turned Lotte around and lifted her shirt up slightly to look at her lower back. "Yeah, it looks like some kind of bird inside a cage crossed out with one of those five pointed stars in a circle? What're they called? A pentacle?"

Fintan twilled questioningly as Lotte rushed to the mirror, lifting up her shirt to look at her lower back. She couldn't see it at first.
But then she did the trick of tilting her head, glimpsing it from the right corner of her left eye. She could see a dark smudge on her lower back, but staring at it like she was, through the mirror, made it impossible to make out. Maybe she could see the points of a pentacle. Maybe.

Since when did she have that?Where did it come from?

"Your face is telling me you didn't know about that one," Rowan said when Lotte came back into the room.

She shook her head.

"Hm. It looks kind of stretched and faded. Does that help?"

Lotte shook her head.

"Do you know what it does?"

A bird in a cage crossed out by a pentacle? Lotte had no idea.

"Maybe you should ask your boyfriend. He seemed very magical."

Lotte's face instantly heated up at the mention of Blue. She didn't want Rowan talking about him.

Asking Blue wasn't a bad idea. He did seem to know a great deal about a great many things that Lotte never heard of. She sighed. It hurt how much she missed him, which worried her on so many levels.

"Well, we better go meet everyone downstairs before it gets dark," Rowan said, stretching.

Lotte wasn't looking forward to this. Apparently, there were more people in the cult than those she had already met. She was tired playing this part and hoped they'd be able to move on quickly.

There was a surprisingly large crowd of people assembled in the barn, sitting on rows upon rows of white plastic garden chairs. They appeared to be of all different ages. A group of teenage girls and boys sat giggling together near the back, prim ladies sat with their purses on their laps, eying another group of women who were dressed all in black down to their lipstick. Lotte spotted an entire assortment of middle-aged men from all walks of life occupying the middle of the room and in the front there was a vast parliament of the elderly.

They broke into an orchestra of awe-struck murmurs when she walked in. The room seemed to vibrate as she passed through it on her way to Maloru, every single person shifting in their seat, trying to get a better look.

"We were just done brainstorming," Maloru said. Apparently, the cult had taken their story without question. Even Rowan, who trailed behind her, received only respect and inquisitive stares.

Lotte had at first wondered if she really needed her disguise. Now she was certain. There was an atmosphere in the room which she didn't like. These people hungered for her in a way that made her feel dirty.

They not only worshipped elves, they wanted to be elves. She noticed several heads of hair were dyed red, while the other half tinged their locks with green and either plaited them or fashioned them into a puffy round cloud like Maloru's.

"Apparently, they can arrange for us a train to Port Kelt in three days," Maloru whispered to her quietly. "It's a thirty hour ride. You sleep on the train and then you're there."

Maloru, Lotte thought, aren't you forgetting something?

Maloru frowned. "What?"

Last time I checked, trains don't have cars for trees.

Maloru laughed. He was laughing a lot since they got there. "Don't worry, there's a solution to my leafiness."

Lotte didn't like the sound of that.

"If I spend a long time as a tree, I can store up time in this form. That's why I'm going to spend the next three days as a tree. That'll give me the entire night and the day after too."

Lotte had to admit it was a convenient solution, but that also meant she had to spend three whole days in the company of these lunatics without Maloru.

And also without an interpreter.

"And there's something else," Maloru said. "Do you think you can draw them up some paper enchantments?"

Lotte's jaw tightened. Am I some kind of circus act to them?

"I don't think that's how they see it," Maloru said. "It's just a small gesture on your behalf, but for them it will be something to remember for the rest of their lives. It'll be the greatest experience they'll ever have."

No. Absolutely not. Magic has a price, Maloru. My magic does, at least.

He knew exactly what price she spoke of, and instantly looked ashamed. "You're right. I'm sorry. That was out of line."

"Lord Maloru," said a woman in a mustard coloured dress suit, a string of chunky pink pearls at her throat and sparkling horn-rimmed spectacles that made her look perpetually cross. "Am I right to assume that the enchantress communicates with you through thought alone?"

"The enchantress doesn't like to waste words, especially when she's thinking of enchantments," Maloru said. "But she can only communicate with other elves through thought."

The room echoed with ooh's and aah's. The awe Lotte's presence invoked only got sharper. She had no trouble glaring out at the room, looking imperial and haughty.
"I'm Kandice Ferdinoz, the chairwoman of WNO," said the woman in the mustard suit.

WNO? Lotte inquired.

"The Worldwide Nahilan Organisation," Maloru muttered. "That's why there are so many today. Apparently, they're also organising protests against the war."

"It's terrible!" cried Kandice. "After what the Lord General did. Trying to invade the high cities. He's delusional thinking you wouldn't retaliate. We all know that the forests on human soil was a peaceful protests and a show of strength. The Lord General likes to forget that there are consequences to his actions."

The Lord General tried to invade the high cities? Lotte had never heard of that. All she knew that he had made an attempt on the Talmil's life a few years before. But of course, everything she knew was funnelled through channels controlled by the Lord General.

It had struck Lotte as strange that the elves would even bother with such a war, but now it was clear to her. Did the humans have a weapon that threatened even the elven homeland?

"And of course the Lord General is beside himself with trying to stop the knowledge of the elves' announcement from spreading," Kandice continued.

"What announcement?" Maloru asked.

"What? Didn't the enchantress tell you? The elves are demanding a ceasefire, which includes leaving human territories they've conquered near Lasuran under elven rule. In exchange the elves won't lift the ancient protections."
Lotte had to stay very still not to betray her surprise. She was supposed to know of this. The ancient protections—some believed they were a legend. In a time when the land raged, the seas boiled and mountains rained ash and fire, obscuring the sun for years at a time, the elves had come to the aid of mankind, placing great magical locks deep within the earth, enchantments so powerful that they wouldn't fade, even after several millennia.

It had happened, supposedly, two thousands years in the past. To humans, this was too distant to remember as fact. But the elves, with a lifespan that could last almost eight hundred years, that distant past was stronger in memory.

"But if they do that, thousands... hundreds of thousands, millions will die," Maloru said, turning to Lotte with alarm. She had to fight to keep her face extra blank.

"The Lord General should have thought it through before waging his war," Kandice said with a laugh. "Did he really think he could best gods? His only goal is to destroy them."

Lotte's stomach turned with mortification.

"The Lord General has two days to consent," Kandice continued, still grinning, relishing in the news. "After which, every day the war continues, the elves will lift another protection."

"He thinks it's an empty threat," Maloru said, dumbfounded. "He won't fold."

Kandice chortled. "Yes. He's going to sweat."

It was like a fire overtook Lotte's mind. The electric lights in the barn began to flicker overheads as shadows lengthened.

She could see the chaos of her magic, its devastating destruction unfold before her. In all her life, she had never felt such anger, or such power. It was dizzying, mad—consuming.

"YOU DARE LAUGH, HUMAN?" It was Maloru who shouted, but beneath his voice, she could hear her own. It was a strange, terrifying feeling. She was speaking through him. "You pretend to worship us, but you mock death?"

Lotte loomed over the human woman, who cowered back in fear. "We are night, and we are day," Maloru continued, as Lotte spoke Poe's own words from so long ago. "Destruction and creation, chaos and order, darkness and light, life and death. Not divided, not opposed. We are one. We are balance."

Lotte felt herself calm at her own words. She was balance, she had to be. If she lost the balance inside herself, her two halves would destroy one another. There was still a bitterness burning her throat. What had just come over her? Where had all that power come from?

Maloru looked pale when he stared at her. What had she done to him? Using him like a puppet.

There was complete silence in the barn. People shuffled aside as Maloru ran towards the door. Lotte stalked after him, and as she passed, everyone cringed backwards in fear. She was a wolf among rabbits.

I'm sorry, Maloru, she thought. I don't know how that happened.

But he wouldn't stop. The moment he was out of the barn, he broke into a run. The sun was coming down. The cultists had prepared for him a nice spot behind the barn with freshly turned earth.

Maloru, Lotte tried, but he ignored her. I'm sorry. Maloru—

When he reached his rooting spot, he turned to look at her, shaking his head from side to side before turning into a tree.