This was for her princess and Partizan; they were all that mattered. As long as she could solve this and do her Portman duties, everyone would be OK, and she would be part of the Wolfson family forever. Then she set off to a place she’d hoped not to go back to.

Outside was freezing cold, with Lottie’s purple blazer and scarf barely keeping the frost from nipping at her neck. She welcomed the cold – it distracted her from thinking about whatever terrible fate had befallen Jamie’s mother.

Making her way through the school, Lottie kept her head down because there was little doubt that Haru was keeping a close watch on her, but it wasn’t until she was at the door to the so-called Parlour that the cold finally hit her. Her hands were sore when she knocked and Lottie had to remind herself to be brave, that this was for the people she loved.

‘Oh, it’s you again.’ Paris stared at her through the peephole, white-out contact lenses making his eyes look like two moons through the gap. ‘What do you want now?’

Lottie squeezed the bag she was carrying, in which was concealed her greatest secret, Liliana and her royal ancestry, which she’d had to hide away for the sake of her Portman duties, and now she was going to make it useful.

‘I need to speak to Stephanie,’ Lottie demanded. ‘I have a secret to trade for your services.’

23

The next two days were excruciating. Every shadow made Lottie jump, every unexpected sound sent her heart racing, as if Claude was right behind her. Lottie had to keep smiling, refusing to drag anyone else into her awful discovery until she’d fully solved it.

A very loud part of her brain told her that Haru knew everything, and that she’d put the whole school in even more danger with her silly plan to steal his box, but as time went by there was no sudden ambush, no more students turning against her, and no word from the Artistocracy on Haru’s mysterious box.

‘Are you gonna eat that?’

Looking up from where she was nervously pushing her dessert around, Lottie didn’t even have time to process the question before Saskia stuck her fork in Lottie’s last piece of cheesecake and shoved it in her mouth, much to the shock of the twins at her side.

‘Saskia, how could you?’ Lola squealed.

Before Saskia had the chance to offer a snarky retort, Micky placed a small portion of his strawberry tart on Lottie’s plate. ‘Desserts are sacred,’ is all that he said.

There was no irony in Micky’s tone, and he nodded to Lottie as if he were some benevolent lord of dessert doctrine, and she supposed he sort of was now that he and his sister owned their father’s business.