Binah continued to stare at her, seeming to want to say something but changing her mind. When she finally looked down, her eyes narrowed, fingers tapping on her chin thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, yes, these do seem important.’

‘I was thinking they could be numbers he needed to remember. Maybe the middle two are PIN numbers?’

‘Too short.’

‘Or lock combinations?’

‘Possibly, but without anything to test them the information is moot.’

Groaning, Lottie fell back against the rug, sending up dust. Binah was only voicing her thoughts. Everything she’d come up with was impossible to test, and she was starting to feel like Haru had intentionally let her find the numbers just to torment her.

Binah grabbed the notebook and adjusted her glasses so she could look at the four lines of numbers better. ‘Is this an exact copy?’ She waited for Lottie to nod in affirmation. ‘The way they’re spread out seems odd to me,’ she said, pondering as she put the notebook back down again. ‘What else have we got that we could compare it to?’

Lottie counted everything they knew on her fingers. ‘We have the mystery numbers, the Hamelin Formula, Ingrid’s mention of Alexis Wolfson and his link to Claude, and Ingrid’s mention of the disposal of the king and queen.’

Binah let out a laugh that surprised Lottie. ‘We have more information from Ingrid than we’ve managed to get ourselves.’

Lottie blinked, realizing it was true, but it didn’t make her laugh – it only made her more worried. ‘Yes, everything is very weird at the moment,’ Lottie found herself saying, and Binah gave her an inquisitive look, silently asking her to explain.

‘I’m sure you’ve noticed how Ellie is pretending everything is fine? It’s worse than you could imagine. It’s one thing for them to forbid me from going after Jamie or Leviathan, but Ellie won’t even let me mention his name. She’s acting like it was back when we met, when we didn’t know anything about Leviathan or Claude.’

‘How are Ellie’s parents?’ Binah asked.

‘They’re being strangely calm. It’s a little unnerving. And none of them will tell me what the plan is. I feel like –’ Lottie cut herself off, because she didn’t want to admit that she was starting to feel obsolete.

Binah contemplated Lottie’s words, chewing them over. ‘Are we in agreement that whatever Claude’s goal is he needs Jamie for it?’ she asked.

Lottie couldn’t answer. Her mask had slipped.

‘Are you OK?’ Binah asked, putting the cursed notebook to the side. ‘We don’t have to do this if it’s too hard to think about right now. We can just talk if you want.’