‘As your princess and your master,’ she began, placing her middle and index finger over his forehead, ‘I hereby command you, Partizan Jamie Volk, are not permitted to act on your romantic feelings towards the Portman Charlotte Edith Pumpkin – and nor shall I, Eleanor Prudence Wolfson, Princess of Maradova – and that we shall commit to only a professional relationship from here on until the end of time. Bound by the blood of Alexis Wolfson, this is an order that will never be disobeyed.’

And so it was done.

Instead of heading back outside to join the others, Jamie found himself wandering to his bedroom, a siren’s call pulling him towards a box hidden away in his wardrobe that he hadn’t touched for longer than he cared to admit.

The door let out a long, moaning creak as he eased it open, the box sitting at the bottom, still locked away in his bag. He reached for it and the blue velvet brought back painful memories. The small box made a popping sound as he opened it, the wolf pendant still sitting there untouched, still sleeping, waiting for him to feel ready to wear it again. The only problem was that he’d lost all sense of what exactly he was waiting for. He didn’t think of Ellie and the Wolfsons and what he owed them any more when he saw the winking silver of the snarling wolf. He only thought of that same chain round Lottie’s throat, binding her to the Maravish royal family.

He quickly shut the box, his gaze drifting to the back of the wardrobe, thinking about the spiderweb of clues hidden behind it.

‘Where is my enemy hiding?’ he muttered.

Haru was right. He’d been looking in all the wrong places. All this time the greatest threat to Lottie had been sitting under his nose.

It was the Wolfsons.

He put the box out of sight again and wondered if he trusted Princess Eleanor Wolfson to keep her promise.

15

‘A box?’ Binah repeated, leaning back into Lottie’s frilly pink pillows and looking comfortable enough to start purring.

‘Not just a box, a secret – one he wants to share with Jamie.’

Lottie was pacing back and forth on one of the purple rugs of the Ivy dorms, absently biting at the chipped nail polish on her fingernail, a bad habit she’d picked up.

‘Isn’t that odd? And why is he waiting to show it to him?’ Sitting down on the floor with a thump, Lottie stared up at Binah as if she might magically know the contents of the mysterious box. ‘It has to be something we can use, right?’