35.

PRESENT DAY

Enchantress Yuralar, the Yomi enchantress employed by the dragon king, was a formidable woman.

Lotte had never met a fully grown Yomi elf before. She didn't know if they were all eight feet tall. Yuralar's plaits piled on her head, thick and heavy, falling all the way down to her lower back. They were beaded with enchantments that sparkled when she moved. Her skin was a tapestry of tattoos—like all elven warriors.

She wore a traditional elven tunic dress with a golden sash and her shoulders exposed. Everything about her screamed Lasuran elf, and yet she was here in Serades serving the Dragon King.

Lotte didn't really have time to wonder what someone like this was doing here, because the woman greeted her with an unmistakable scowl.

"They say that you're an enchantress." She spoke human with a heavy elven accent. "A Leilan Lotte."

"What do you want?" Lotte asked in elvish. Perhaps she could've done more to win over this person, but Lotte was tired, anxious and not completely herself.

Yuralar stepped towards her, bending down so that her face was inches from Lotte's. "Leave," she hissed. "I don't care where you go, just leave this place."

It was hard not to flinch under the intensity of that gaze. Lotte felt herself cringing. It wasn't that the Yomi enchantress was threatening, but she was angry and there was a push to her anger.

"I can't," Lotte said.

"You can't?" the Enchantress asked, straightening. "Or you won't?"

"I can't," Lotte repeated, and sighed because, despite her better judgment, the kiss from last night was still fresh on her lips. "And I won't."

Yuralar huffed in annoyance. "Who made you? How do you speak our tongue? Where did you even learn how to enchant?"

"I don't know who made me," Lotte said, going for the portion of the truth that could never reach Poe.
Yuralar rolled her eyes.

"Why did you call me here?" Lotte asked before the Enchantress could say anything more.

"They want me to give you a healing tattoo," Yuralar replied cooly. "King's orders."

It was Lotte's turn to roll her eyes. "How do they know I don't already have one?" she asked.

"You couldn't possibly have created one yourse—"

"Thank you for your kind offer," Lotte said. "But no thank you."

Yuralar's eyes narrowed into a steely glare.

Lotte bowed her head slightly. "If that's all, then I'll..."

"Whatever you're hiding on your skin," the Yomi enchantress said. "You won't be able to hide it for long."

"We'll see."

When she returned to the suite, she found Maloru pacing the sitting room.

"Any sign of Rowan?" he asked the moment she came in through the door.

She shook her head. "I have a bad feeling about this..."

"Maybe she's gone to search for her brother?"

Lotte wrung her hands together and hoped that Rowan would appear soon.

Morning turned to noon and then the afternoon slowly wasted away. It was a terribly idle day. She did what she knew best to pass the time and calm her nervous hands—she made enchantments.

She enchanted the doorway to cause anyone who wasn't a friend to break out in hives. She enchanted the the doorknob to warm up when anyone who wasn't her or Maloru was inside the room. She didn't have many ingredients left, but she used whatever she could find in the room.

Meals arrived carried by human servants who avoided all eye contact or conversation and scurried out of the room like frightened mice after delivering the trays.

During the later hours of the afternoon, Rowan still didn't show up, but a strange groan sounded down the corridor. It repeated in a long droning sequence.

"What is that?" Maloru asked.

"A horn." It sounded like the one that blared every morning in the factory district in Raidox, signalling the change of shifts.

Maloru opened the door to look out at the corridor. The echoes of the horn's call barely died off before starting again. "Why's someone blowing a horn?"

"Maybe to announce dinner?"

"It's too early for dinner..."

Lotte went over to the silk cord at the corner of the sitting room and pulled it to call one of the servants. A human girl around Lotte's age appeared in the doorway a moment later. Like the rest of the human servants, she was silent.

"Is there anything going on?" Lotte asked in Vitulos.

The girl looked confused, as if trying to figure out what she needs to fetch for Lotte.

"Do you know if there's a reason they're blowing that horn?" Lotte tried again, raising her voice over the sound coming from the corridor.

The girl looked from Lotte to Maloru, her distress growing with every moment.

"What are you telling her?" Maloru asked in human. "She looks like she's about to cry."

"I'm just asking her about the horn," Lotte interjected back to him.

"Y-you speak my language..." the girl piped in. Of course, she was human, so she spoke human.

"Ah...thought you didn't," Lotte said.

"Humans are forbidden from learning Vitulos."

Lotte's eyebrows shot up. "I...didn't know that."

The girl looked left and right and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. "It used to be different," she said quietly, now eager to speak when she knew they shared a language. "We used to all have a common language, but the Families changed all that."

"The four families that control Serades?" Lotte asked.

The girl nodded. If she was surprised that Lotte knew such a thing, she didn't show it. "We hoped things would change," she whispered. "When the king would change. But the Dragon Heir is weak."

"Weak?"

The girl stepped even closer, her voice growing quieter. "They say he never flies."

"He flies," Lotte said. "He flied last night."

"As a sky dragon," she said. "He never flies."

"Why?" Lotte asked.

The girl shrugged.

"Why're you telling us all this?" Maloru asked.

"Because you...you're the..." The girl shook her head, looking suddenly flustered.

Lotte stepped forward. "Nevermind that. What about the horn?"

"Oh," she jumped slightly. "It's because of the king."

"What about him?" Maloru asked.

"He's dying. It may happen tonight."

***

2.5 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR
"What is it?"

It was pitch dark when Poe woke her from a deep sleep one night when Lotte was fourteen. It was one of the deepest hours of night on one of the longest nights of winter.

"I must go away for a few days," Poe said.

"To the elves?" Lotte asked.

Poe looked across her bedroom, drawing his lips together into a firm line before nodding his head.

"How long will you be gone?"

He looked down at her grimly. "A few days," he said and then added, "I hope."

A few days.

Lotte bid him farewell without any complaint and went back to sleep.
On the first day, she drew some of the enchantments he left her to practice, and took a long walk down Republic Avenue. The second day she decided to take a tram to her favourite second hand bookstore.
She began to feel truly worried after the first week, and her worry morphed into panic as the second week drew to a close.

During the third week she didn't dare leave the house, lest Poe suddenly appear. 'What if's stormed through her mind.

What if this was some kind of test? To see if she could survive on her own—but then, hadn't she already proven that when she was a tiny seven year old?

What if something had happened to Poe? But what could possibly happen to a fully grown elf Unless...unless he stepped on an iron nail or something. Was he injured somewhere?

What if he didn't want to come back? Poe once told her that he made a promise to be her guardian. He never said he chose to be her guardian. He stayed with her under the sense of obligation.

But she was no longer a child.

What if Poe was never coming back?
What if he was dead?

What if Lotte was alone in the world again?

Her thoughts always circled back to that depressing place. Alone, alone, alone. Alone wasn't that bad. She was queen of her own life. She had where to live. She had food to eat. Money? Yes, she had some of that too.

She was only afraid of being alone because last time she had been struggling on the streets.

Why, then, did it feel like her heart was bleeding?

Because that's what hearts did. They bled.

Poe did not return after a month.
He also didn't return in the following two.

Eventually, worry became anger. How could he just disappear from her life?

But she knew the answer. He had done so before, hadn't he? It was easy for him. It wasn't the same for her. She'd thought family was more than that. She'd believed that Poe loved her.

But again, she loved more and lost more than anyone else.

After three months of living alone, someone knocked on Lotte's door. It wasn't Poe. It was a woman who looked vaguely familiar.

She was prim, with blonde ringlets and a very large handbag hanging from her arm. "Hello, you must be Lotte," she said, extending her hand. "I'm Mrs. Herbert. It's good to see you again."

Lotte took the offered hand. "Again?"

The woman didn't explain. "I was informed this flat is going to be sold—"

"Sold?" Lotte cried, feeling her temper flaring. "Why wasn't I informed? I live here."

"I assume there's a reason," Mrs. Herbert said. "Either way, I've been asked to help you pack your things and find a new place for yourself."

"Asked? By who?"

Mrs. Herbert narrowed her eyes. She had very big and very blue eyes. "Who do you think, dear?" Mrs. Herbert marched into the flat, sleek stiletto heels clicking on the floorboards. She was holding a stack of folded cardboard boxes under her arm.

Lotte's eyes stung with tears of anger. "Why didn't he contact me?"

"Always assume there's a reason with him," the woman said. She was already in Lotte's bedroom. "Because there always is."

Lotte couldn't move an inch from the front door. "He really isn't coming back?" she asked in a small voice.

Mrs. Herbert stuck her head out of Lotte's room. She was wearing a cool grin. "He always comes back. You can rely on it."

Lotte edged towards her room. Mrs. Herbert was neatly arranging books into the first box. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mrs. Herbert, I told you."

"And where did we meet before?"

"Oh, you wouldn't remember it." The box was already full. She pulled a roll of tape out of her handbag. "You were such a lovely little girl when we met for the first time. I was about to take you home from that awful place..."

Lotte gasped. She did remember.
"That terrible woman who ran the orphanage," Mrs. Herbert continued. "Wouldn't allow me to have you without a fight. She was furious that I wanted you and not any of the other children. I returned the next day with my lawyers, but you were gone and no one, not even he, could find you."

Lotte blinked several times. It was a lot to take in and for some reason her tears wanted to fall. "He was looking for me?"

"He was furious with that woman," Mrs. Herbert said. "The House Mistress. I think he did something to her, I'm not sure. You don't stay in the same room with an angry elf."

"Are you his girlfriend?" Lotte asked. At fourteen, she knew better than to ask such questions bluntly, but the part of her brain that was angry wanted to say the unspeakable.

But Mrs. Herbert only laughed. "With him?" She shook her head, covering her mouth as she giggled. "Oh goodness me. What a thought."

"Why? Because he's an elf?"

Mrs. Herbert started filling the second box with Lotte's brushes. "Oh, no. There was a time in my life I dreamt about romancing an elf. They're lovely, aren't they? I'd never consider him because he's so old. I'm not sure exactly how old he is, but he knew my grandmother when she was a baby and even then, he was hundreds of years old."

"Do you know his name?" Lotte asked.

Mrs. Herbert shook her head. "He's a bit strange about names. But so are you, aren't you, Lotte?"