33.
5 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

When Lotte was twelve she was too old to play games with the little Lottes in the abandoned lot in the factory district. Instead, she was invited to sit on the pile of broken concrete slabs in the back of lot together with the other teens. Those interactions consisted mostly of banter, and Lotte laughed politely on her own on the side.

She felt very awkward. Not just there, but all the time. She felt awkward with how long her legs suddenly became and the new curves of her body. The worst of it was telling Poe when things got...complicated.

Of course, Lotte didn't live under a rock, so she knew what was happening. It just felt like she preferred to die over talking about it with Poe.

It was a time when she wanted to be with him less, and he allowed her to take the tram to the factory district alone to be with the other Lottes when she wasn't studying.

She envied them for always living near one another and having each other.

"Sylvar, you have legs like a ballerina," a boy named Rej said.
And that was when it started.

They thought her name was Sylvarnan, of course. Lottes weren't allowed to have names, according to the law, but no one followed that.

Rej was fourteen. He had a heart-shaped face and long lashes, curls that toppled down his cheeks and a smile that was as bright as a summer afternoon. He was everybody's friend, and always said things the moment they came to mind.

Everyone laughed at his comment, but Lotte just blushed.

"She does," he insisted, looking confused at his friends' reaction.

"Nine gods, you're so random," said Frida.

"Rej's the king of randomness," Lark agreed.

Rej raised his chin up regally. "At least I'm the king of something."

They all laughed, Lotte too. She laughed harder than anyone.

And later, she thought of Rej, even in her dreams. She started a journal, where she wrote his name again and again. It started out as a flutter, and developed into a tidal-wave. He was on her mind whenever her brain wasn't doing anything in particular.

It hurt to pine for him, and it was embarrassing and also a little bit thrilling.

She didn't like it when they called her Sylvar. That wasn't her name, it was what elven guardians called their charges. She didn't want them to call them Lotte either. For them, who were all Lotte, that would just be weird.

"Why can't I have a name?" Lotte asked Poe during dinner one time.

"It's better that you don't."

"Why is it better?"

Poe put down his fork and twined his fingers together. "You are not like other Lotte," he said. "Caivis is the most versatile and powerful magical ability in the world. There will always be someone determined to own us."

"Does anyone own you?"

Poe sighed, leaning back into his chair and looking away. Lotte had learnt, over the years, to recognise when some things put Poe in a dark mood. They were few, and far between, but this was a sensitive subject. "I am owned by the Talmil."

The Talmil, Lotte knew, was the closest thing the elves of Lasuran had for a ruler. The Talmil was chosen by the elders, that's all Lotte knew.

"For now," he said. "She has allowed me to stay here."

"Do you have a name?" Lotte asked, even though she knew the answer.

"I can't tell you my name."

She sighed. All these closed doors and hidden truths, they were getting on her nerves. Sometimes she got so angry, it became hard to choose to love.

On a chilly day in late autumn, Lotte took the tram to the factory district only to find the abandoned lot...well, abandoned. There was something odd about the air. Where had everyone gone? She wandered about the area, returning an hour later to the lot where she sat alone on the broken concrete slabs.

A sniffle behind her made her start, and there she found Lark, another of the Lotte boys she hung out with, curled in the shadow of the concrete pile.

"Lark, what's the matter? Where is everyone?"

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. His tears fell out of his eyes in bright sparks that popped like brilliant bubbles before dropping to the ground.

"Sylvar...?" He drew a shuddering breath.

"What happened?"

"You didn't hear?"

She climbed down from the pile of broken concrete and sat down next to him. "Hear what?"

"Last night..." Lark swallowed. "A large group of Nahilan psychopaths stormed Sullivan tower. They got three of us, Sylvar."

"What do you mean...got?" she asked, heart leaping with fright.

"They took Vida, Wex and Rej," he whispered. "And they burned them alive." He hugged his knees to his chest, dissolving into sobs.

Lotte clasped her hands over her mouth feeling like she was about to get sick.

"The constables never came," Lark went one, speaking through his tears. "They never come. Who cares about a bunch of Lotte?"

Lotte's whole body was shaking. Rej was dead? He was dead? How could he be?

"Nobody cares about us," he continued. "Nobody wants us. If we die, nothing happens. Nothing changes. Nothing ever will."

***

PRESENT DAY

Lotte was trembling and sweating when she arrived back at her suite. She locked and bolted the door, looking everywhere for something that could be a rune. It was impossible to know, out of all the decorations and furnishings, what was secretly sorcery.

"Hey, you're back early," Rowan said from the doorway of her bedroom, closing the sash of a silk dressing robe.

Lotte leaned against the door and tried to steady her heart.

What was that? What was that?

"Are we in trouble?" Rowan asked.

Lotte nodded.

"Is the Dragon King a crazy tyrant?"

Lotte shook her head.

Rowan gasped. "Did you forget how to speak again?"

"I never forgot how to speak," Lotte said, voice cracking. "It was that seal."

"So, are you going to tell me what—"

Lotte balled her hands into fists. Whoever this Prince Fintan was, he did not seem friendly, not in the least. She had been so bent on coming here and surviving, she hadn't given thought to why they needed an enchantress in the first place.

If it was merely a professional need of her services, that hostile exchange today was completely unnecessary.

Lotte grabbed Rowan's wrist and pulled her outside, to the veranda, where Maloru was quietly rooted. She didn't feel safe until her fingers were touching the rough surface of his bark. She leaned against his trunk, taking several deep breaths.
"What you saw in the wastes yesterday," Lotte said. "The person who saved us..."

"Blue?" Rowan asked.

"He wasn't real."

Rowan leaned against Maloru next to Lotte. "What makes you say that?"

"Because..." Lotte drew in a deep breath. "I met the real Dragon Heir tonight."

"Huh," Rowan crossed her arms. "So Blue was the Dragon Heir, but he was also our visa-dragon Fintan—"

"That's his name," Lotte said. "Prince Fintan. There was never a visa dragon. It's..." Lotte's head fell into her hands. "But if he wasn't the dragon heir, how did he control the Rugar? I don't understand what's happening."

"Lotte," Rowan said. "You don't have to understand."

"Oh, thanks, Rowan, that's so helpful..."

"It's like with the messages from my future selves," Rowan said. "I don't understand it all, so I try to focus on the things that I do know. That person who saved us in the wastes, whoever he was, was he good or bad?"

"Good," Lotte said immediately.

"Great," Rowan said. "Let that be your compass. Sometimes we have to think in simple terms to understand the things we already know." She bumped her shoulder with Lotte's. "Kids do it all the time."

Like with enchantments. Lotte tried to clear her mind, though her emotions were getting in the way. Monthes and Briaad, were obviously part of those crime families Blue had mentioned that ruled over Serades and controlled the Dragon King.

But Prince Fintan didn't look like he was being controlled by anyone. He looked like the one in charge.

But then there was the curse. She was inside it now, and she still couldn't understand what it did. Poe had talked a little bit about curses at some point in the past. He had said that curses worked like venom. She didn't remember the context or what else he said.

She tossed the riddle of the curse through her mind as she tossed in bed later that night.

"You don't cure venom by breaking the venom, it's the same for a broken heart."

Lotte sat up in bed. When Blue had said those words to her, she thought he was talking about how her heart would break at his sacrifice. But no, what he meant was that Lotte didn't have to break the curse, she had to find the antidote.

An antidote attached itself to venom, until it couldn't cause harm and was washed out and the body was cured.

If the curse was a broken heart, what was the antidote for that? Lotte settled into her pillows.
If she knew the answer to that question, she wouldn't be feeling this way.

But at least that thought helped her drift off.

Again, she was in the empty tower room. It looked even worse than before. The lines between the stones that made up the wall were blurred and everything had a strange violet sheen to it.

This place, whatever it was, was a part of the Blue she had known that was fading away. Lotte looked around, wondering what would happen when this place finally faded. Would she simply have her own dreams again?

"Something feels off," said Blue's voice from somewhere behind her.
Lotte froze and turned very slowly.
A passage was there, but it hadn't been there before and it didn't look like it belonged. It was far too solid, the walls made out of pine with gold leaves painted on it. A bottle green carpet muffled her slow steps.

"Don't worry about it, Fin," said a second voice. Those one was Monthes. "Why are you so bothered by that little elf?"

"She's not an elf." It wasn't Blue, it was Prince Fintan. "And she's hiding something. Did you see what she was wearing?"

"A dress?"

"A high necked dress and gloves. She's an enchantress, you fool. They wear enchantments on their skin and she's hiding them."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Monthes said. "We know how to control her. You need to focus on the fact that she's going to give us what we want."

"I've tried scrying, but it's no good with that Yomi blocking everything."

"Are you even listening to me?"

"I want you to arrange for someone to seduce her," Fintan said.

Lotte clasped her hand over her mouth. How could he say something like that?

"Seduce her? We don't need—"

"I want to find out what she's hiding."

"She's likely involved with that Yomi," Monthes said, sounding irritated.

"So? She'll need a lover for the nighttime while he's a tree."

Lotte crept along the wall, until she came upon an open doorway. She peeked inside. It was a very big study, or maybe a library. She thought that one of the men inside the room was about to turn to her so she ducked back into the passage.
Monthes laughed. "You're too invested in this. What's gotten into you?"

"She called me something strange," Fintan said. "I can't get it out of my head."

"She was probably talking about your eyes."

Fintan growled somewhere near the doorway, making Lotte creep deeper into the passage. "No, it was something else. I can't understand that look she gave me, like she recognised me."

"Fin, you're starting to worry me."

She could hear a sigh.

"If the stories about her are true," Monthes continued. "She's incredibly powerful, and now we have her. Now we finally have the edge we need to accomplish everything you desire. Why are you troubling yourself with all these irrelevant details?"

"Huh..." Fintan said, and Lotte heard rapid steps coming towards her.

"You're not listening to me, are you?"

"There's something..."

Lotte ran back down the passage, but the tower room was gone. She rounded a corner and ended at a closed door. When she tried to open it, her hands passed right through it.

"Fin?"

The footsteps drew closer and closer. Wake up, wake up, wake up. She had to wake up.

A gasp sounded behind her, she turned to face Prince Fintan.

"You." He made to grab for her.

She woke up in her bed with a start to find Rowan standing at the foot of her bed with very round eyes.

"Lotts," she said. "I don't know what this is about—"

"What do I do?" Lotte asked. "What message did you get?"

Rowan leaned towards her. "Whatever you do, don't let him see the mark. It's too soon. But...give him what he wants, and make it memorable."

A crash sounded from the door of the suite, Lotte leapt from her bed, landing on her feet. Maloru was sleeping outside unaware of all this commotion, Rowan was a helpless human—any wrong move could so easily cost their lives.

She dashed into the main room in time to come face to face with the furious virata prince, Monthes at his heels. He grabbed her by both her shoulders.

"You. How did you get past my guard?" He was seething, blue eyes flashing, nostrils flaring.

"I was sleeping," Lotte said. "And you summoned me there."

"Me?" If possible, that notion made him angrier. "I would never—"

"Are you sure?"

"My prince," Monthes purred. "Come now, this is no way to behave. I don't know what you think you saw—"

"I saw her in the room."

"Yes, but—"

Fintan let go of Lotte to turn on Monthes. "Know your place," he hissed. "How dare you speak back to me?"

He pointed at Lotte. "This creature is dangerous, it wormed its way into my head after just a few hours here and it's your fault it's here."

Give him what he wants...How could Lotte know what this person wanted? He was crazy with his temper.

Lotte shrunk in on herself, bowing her head. "I beg for your forgiveness, your highness," she said in the smallest of voices.

That caught him off guard, causing him to hesitate. But his glare was right there again a second later. "Cut the act," he snapped.

She didn't contradict him. "Let's have a talk," she said. "In private."

"That's a marvellous suggestion," Monthes said.

The Prince huffed in annoyance. "Fine," he said and quite unceremoniously, grabbed Lotte round her waist. With a massive flap of his wings, he lifted them into the air and flew out from the open door leading towards the veranda, past Maloru in his tree form and out into the snowy night.