As he went over it all, he moved around the room, picking up items and putting them down. Liliana’s old work and Lottie’s blended together like a conversation centuries apart. He paused at the desk, one of the drawers still open a little, and, without a second thought, he tugged it the rest of the way. Inside was Lottie’s sketchbook, the moleskin glistening, and the pages split like the slit of an eye in the centre where she’d shoved something into the creases. Usually he wouldn’t dare pry, but he was so desperate for something to ground him, something of Lottie’s, that his hands acted for him. The pages were filled with strange sketches of everyone and everything from her life, including Ellie and himself. But they weren’t simple portraits – Lottie had drawn them in a myriad curious get-ups, mostly regal. One of them caught his attention. It was a sketch of Jamie on a throne. His eyes were pure green, the same green he’d seen in his reflection a mere moment ago; there were no flecks of gold. But strangest of all was the crown on his head. No, not a crown, these were great stag antlers. The image felt prophetic, and he could almost hear it whispering to him.

Jamie, you are so much more than you know, Haru breathed over his shoulder.

Trapped in the spell, he flicked through the rest of the pages, with more alluring images revealing themselves. Cats with horns, Jamie with horns, Ellie stuck in a cage shaped like a crown, Ellie smiling, Jamie frowning, and soon they all blurred together, until he fell upon what was hidden at the centre in the book’s creases, something that was entirely out of place. Handwritten letters spilled out on to the floor as he pulled the papers free, the script elegant and seductive like a siren’s call.

At first they made little sense. Cryptic messages. Then his vision began to focus, and bile rose to his throat. Choking, he read the name at the bottom: Your uncle, Claude.

The Goat Man from the roof in Tokyo. Slowly he realized what this meant, why it made him feel so dirty and ill. All this time Lottie had been corresponding with Claude. But it wasn’t over. With his body shaking, the rest of the contents in his hands fell around him, a paper rainfall of secret: a photograph, cards with images he couldn’t decipher, and a folded piece of parchment. It wasn’t until he reached down to pick them up that he realized what he was looking at. From the stone floor his own mother stared up at him.

She was smiling, a wry intelligence, a curve in her lip that he recognized in himself. His trembling fingers moved instinctively to touch his own mouth, his nose, his hair, everything he could see reflected within the ghost of his mother.