Lottie tried again. Only the faintest hint that she shared Ellie’s shock came across in the way her eyelids fluttered. ‘Pardon me, ma’am. I fear I’ve misheard you. Are you really planning to host another Flower Festival? I thought you’d decided to halt them indefinitely after what happened last summer.’

The Flower Festival, Ellie thought, grinding her teeth at the awful memory of the night Lottie had nearly been kidnapped a year ago.

‘Not just a Flower Festival.’ Willemena banged her cane again as if it were Lottie who was being preposterous. ‘This is the Golden Flower Festival. We have it every ten years and allow the citizens of Maradova to explore the grounds. If we don’t stick to our traditions, people will suspect something is wrong, and after the disaster with the media this summer no one can know there are any cracks in the Wolfson family. No one.’ She banged her cane once more for good measure, causing Lottie’s eyelids to flutter even faster.

‘Ma’am, I’m not sure if –’

Ellie stepped in front of Lottie before she could finish. ‘I think what Lottie is trying to say, is that, with all due respect –’ of which there is none – ‘removing Claude’s painting achieves nothing. Neither did exiling him in the first place. You can’t all keep pretending that nothing is wrong. It will blow up in our faces.’ Ellie’s voice came out weary and ragged, not her usual angry, sarcastic tone.

Her father glared at her. ‘Eleanor, we are trying to have a civil discussion.’

Anger burned on her tongue as she met his eyes. ‘And you. We know what you did. Lottie’s been polite enough not to tell you how she found out all this mess led back to our family but we know you’ve been hiding things from us.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Her father’s tone was still harsh but she saw his mask slipping, worry giving itself away in the furrowing of his brow.

‘We know what you threw away and covered up for the sake of the Wolfson name. We know about your letters to Kana, your first love.’ She took a moment to relish the shock this would cause her father, but his face remained inscrutable. Only her mother reacted, looking so hurt that Ellie recoiled.

The letters proving her father’s secret relationship with another student he’d met while studying abroad had originally been Claude’s weapon, a way to discredit the crown – except that Ellie had taken it for herself. She’d expected the impact to be a sharp and sleek stab, something to draw out the poisonous blood of her family and all the harm they caused everyone they met for the sake of the throne, only there was nothing satisfying about their reaction at all.