Lottie couldn’t leave Jamie, and if the Wolfsons were forbidding her from going after him, she’d have to find a way round them.

‘I think we should go to bed,’ she announced, feeling the ring in her pocket and clinging on to the very last shreds of hope that they could one day go back to normal, that they could all be friends again, laughing and joking their way through homework and parties like regular teenagers.

Strange how a dream so simple could suddenly feel so far out of reach.

Ellie and Lottie began walking in time with each other, uncomfortable silence following them down the echoing hallways.

Lottie dropped Ellie at her room, who looked as if she were going to say something, but it only came out as a sigh. ‘I promise you everything is going to be OK,’ she said instead. ‘I’m going to make it OK again.’

‘I know,’ Lottie replied, her hand going to the wolf round her neck, which felt delicate and rare now that hers and Ellie’s were the only two left. She felt the same way. She was going to make it OK, whether any of them liked it or not.

Heading back to her quarters, the opulence of the palace felt stale; dampened silver and waning crystal decorated the dressers under the windows where vines and branches tapped at the glass. Lottie had never noticed the way the garden grew up around the walls before, its spindly green fingers creeping just out of sight. It was no wonder Willemena had been so afraid.

‘I’m going to bring you back,’ she said, gripping the ring tight. ‘We’ll be together again.’

31

Haru took Jamie to a remote log cabin situated by a lake in the Bavarian Alps, far away from any form of civilization. They travelled by train and car, using passports Haru had already acquired for them to keep their journey untraceable, until at last they arrived late in the night. A bloated and eager moon followed them up the winding path and deep into the mountains. Blanketed by millions of stars, the planet stretched out forever in front of him, the universe above reflecting in the giant body of water, endless.

‘They will have food ready,’ Haru said. ‘How are you feeling?’

Jamie didn’t answer, staring at where his feet met the blue grass at the edge of the lake, the light from the cabin glowing at his back, casting a shadow in his shape over the starlight mirror. For a moment he felt like the only person alive until Haru moved closer, their shadows melding together.

‘Everything feels bigger,’ Jamie said. ‘It’s a little overwhelming.’

Haru draped an arm round his shoulders. ‘We can wait to go inside.’