That was all he could manage. He stumbled back, and, before he could register what he was doing, he was sprinting away, his legs carrying him to his dorm, where he threw open the wardrobe, rifling through his possessions until he found the velvet box. Plucking it from its slumbering tomb, in his hurry, his elbow hit the side of the dresser hard enough that the makeshift back wall fell away. There, etched in the wood, was the question he’d been seeking the answers to all this time. Where is my enemy?

With the box stashed in his pocket, Jamie looked over his room, knowing Percy could return at any moment. The space at once felt too small, too much a false and cloying part of the lie he’d been living. He had to get away, somewhere soothing, where no one would interrupt. Taking off as fast as he could, Jamie ran from the Ivy Wood dorm, knowing exactly where he was heading. Each time his legs pounded the path, a different image would pound inside his skull. Haru in the rain, Ellie betraying their pact, Lottie screaming and finally his own reflection. Not until he reached Stratus Side did Jamie stop for breath. Then with methodical calm he began his descent to Liliana’s study.

The hidden room was filled with the scent of roses and lavender, the same comforting aromas he’d come to associate with Lottie. She smelled of Rosewood Hall, its spirit in her blood. The room came to life with the pink glow of the fairy lights she’d draped along the walls, hanging stars twinkling above him as though he was floating in space. The whole room was Lottie, and right now all he wanted was to wrap himself in her.

Taking deep, slow breaths he tried to make sense of the mess in his head, knowing that Haru was waiting for him, that Lottie and Ellie were in the school somewhere, that they knew something he didn’t, and that Ellie had betrayed him. And the most unforgivable part? Ellie had forced him into a pact that would protect Lottie, one bound by their allegiance to the throne, and she’d destroyed it – just like she did everything.