Lottie ignored her inquisitive tone. She was Ellie’s Portman, and the Wolfsons were her chosen family, a real family that she could touch, not a ghost or a secret in her blood. That’s where she belonged and where her attention needed to lie, and if that meant closing herself off from her royal heritage, then so be it. ‘I have to get this open.’ Lottie was surprised by how desperate she sounded, both Max and Stephanie visibly recoiling.

Jumping off the dryer, Max tapped a long finger against their chin in thought. ‘What’s in there that’s so important anyway?’

‘You won’t understand. No one does, not even me.’ Lottie shook the box, as if it might give her a clue. ‘Something’s going on and, if I can’t solve it, terrible things could happen. I could lose everything.’

Lottie wished she had Sayuri with her, someone she could actually talk to about this, to help her figure it all out. Someone who understood the need to cling to and protect any family you found.

Max and Stephanie looked at one another across the room, until eventually Stephanie exhaled, a deep sigh.

‘Listen, little guppy.’ Stephanie stepped forward to wrap her cold arm round her. ‘You gave me a very good secret, so let me give you some advice. You need something sharp, really sharp, and you should be able to wedge it under the box’s lid and prise it open. Can you do that?’

‘Where am I supposed to find –’

Lottie stared at the box as Sayuri’s postcard turned over in her head like the key she needed. Our fates are linked by the sword.

Even from across the world Sayuri still found a way to give her the advice she needed.

‘I know what I need to do,’ Lottie said, side-stepping Stephanie. ‘Wait for me here; I’ll bring the box back in fifteen minutes.’ She stopped in the doorway of the laundry room and looked at Max and Stephanie’s stunned faces. ‘Thank you.’

Lottie ran straight to her dorm. She kicked the door shut and dived to the floor. There, deep in the shadows under her bed, a silver light winked at her from between sheets of cloth. When her fingers reached round her treasure she freed it with a metallic whirr.

As Lottie unwrapped the sword, the strange but familiar sun-etched handle came into view. Why had she hidden it away? Lottie stared down at her ancestor’s sword, her eyes taking it in for the first time in a long while.

Holding it made her chest ache, and she longed to embrace her heritage. But she knew that what waited for her if she followed this feeling was loneliness. There would be no family: no Wolfsons, no Jamie, no Ellie; only Lottie, alone, again.