This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Everything Lottie had done was so they could put this right, so they could be happy together at last. This was the last hurdle; she just had to persuade Ellie that returning to Maradova was the best thing to do, and they would take it from there, get the truth from the king and queen and finally bring this whole thing to light. So why was speaking to Ellie suddenly the hardest part?

‘You need to think about this, Lottie,’ Ellie said, but it wasn’t Ellie; this was something cruel, her black hair clumped together like bug’s legs, casting shadows that warped her face. ‘You need to think about the future, about what you’ll do without me.’

Lottie felt the room get smaller, the same feeling she’d had when she spoke to Binah in the library, like the world was crumbling around her, sucking the air out of her chest as it got tighter and tighter. This was the future, wide and unknowable and so large that it crushed everything under its weight. And it was so lonely she felt like she could die.

‘I need some air,’ she declared, staggering over to the balcony. She flung the door open, launching herself into the grey, and Ellie followed behind, a shadow at her back.

The soft drizzle began collecting on their skin and hair.

‘Lottie?’

When she turned, she was face to face with her princess, the small of Lottie’s back against the stone balcony wall with nowhere else to go.

‘What do you mean?’ Lottie asked, fingers tightening over the cold slab of mossy rock, surprised by the grit in her tone.

‘You know …’ Ellie replied, glancing at the cloud mass in the distance. With her face exposed to the broken light, she looked harsh, skin sunken, as if she didn’t fit in her own body any more. ‘Like, what universities will you apply to; where will you go?’ She let out an exhausted sigh, staring at Lottie with what almost looked like disappointment. ‘You’re the ancestor of Liliana Mayfutt, the only known relative of both a missing princess and the founder of Rosewood Hall, don’t you ever wonder what that means? What else you could be?’

‘I don’t care about any of that,’ Lottie said, her stomach twisting, like she’d just committed a terrible blasphemy. But it was true. She didn’t want to be alone again. ‘I just want to stay with you. I thought we both wanted that.’ It felt like a stupid sentiment, plain and simplistic.

‘Why would you think that?’

‘Stop it, Ellie.’

Lottie tried to meet her princess head on. Both of them were almost completely soaked through, their white cotton blouses clinging to their skin, hanging off them uncomfortably, and she could smell the roses and the spice, dampened and moulding.