To the Goat Man,

Thank you so much for your very generous clue, and for humouring your silly little niece. Nothing says ‘I care’ quite like blackmail.

While I am indeed familiar with folklore and fairy tales (how kind of you to notice), the crowned stag seems out of place; my upbringing tells me it should be a wolf instead.

Now, with all things considered, I think it would be acceptable for me to ask a question myself, and I’m sure, oh great and wise uncle, that you will be happy to answer.

So I must ask, with morbid curiosity, why do you want my Partizan?

Regards,

Your ever-charming young niece

The glue tasted bitter against Lottie’s tongue where she dragged it over the envelope, sealing away the letter with begrudging acceptance. Writing each word had felt like she was making a deal with the devil. It sickened her to think that it was meant to be Ellie in her place.

Shoving the letter in her bedside table, Lottie locked the drawer, dreading having to take it out again and give it to Haru, like a dog bringing their master the daily newspaper.

The bathroom door opened, and from a cloud of steam and the mellow scent of the men’s body spray she used Ellie emerged in a black hoodie and ripped jeans, rubbing her hair with a small towel. It still made Lottie’s stomach lurch in a distinctly pleasant way to see Ellie out of her armour, no dark eyeliner or lipstick, just her bare skin. It was so soft and pale it looked almost transparent.

‘You ready to go?’ she asked, not quite meeting Lottie’s eyes.

‘Yep,’ Lottie said with a tight-lipped smile, thinking no.

Anastacia and Saskia were waiting for them in the Conch dorms for their meeting of the people-who-know-Ellie-is-the-real-princess-and-Haru-is-a-member-of-Leviathan gang, or ‘the inner circle’ as Lottie was calling them in her head. But her mind was a tangle of anxiety, all of which she couldn’t let Ellie see, because today was also the day Haru had requested his first hour alone with Jamie, something she absolutely did not want to think about.

Anastacia’s room was like something out of a luxury interior design catalogue, combined with a fluffy pink teenage fantasy. Indeed, it had featured in Toffy magazine when they’d run a piece on the ‘Best Rooms in British Boarding Schools’. Lottie had the very page pinned up in her old bedroom.

The room had been titled The Catwalk Queen of Conch House and had an equally over-the-top copy to accompany it.