Page 10

Chapter 8

Lotte

Holtzfall.

The name pinned Lotte in her seat, even as the automobile raced into the unknown.

They got the papers once a week in Gelde. It was a whole other world pressed between flimsy pages. Estelle used to pore over them fanatically: ink and watercolor drawings of the latest fashions, announcements for events that had already passed, and gossip about people in an untouchably distant world.

With the same name appearing over and over again.

Holtzfall. Holtzfall. Holtzfall.

Holtzfalls clutching brilliantly white ermine stoles around their shoulders and stepping out of huge automobiles. Holtzfalls under lightbulb marquees, pearls and diamonds winking at the camera. Holtzfalls captured in flagrante in the clubs and bars of the cities, throwing money around like they needed to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

As far as Lotte was aware, there had never been a picture of a Holtzfall sitting in the back of an automobile with mud still drying on her legs. Some of it was sticking to the leather seats.

She had misheard. Or misunderstood. They didn’t mean she was a Holtzfall. They meant…they meant—

It was only when they had fully drawn away from Gelde that Lotte noticed how quiet it was. It took Lotte a few moments to understand what was missing.

And then she realized. She should be able to hear their minds.

She hadn’t noticed in Gelde, in the cacophony of competing thoughts. But now…there was nothing. Not a stray scrap of memory or feeling invading her mind. It was as quiet as the convent.

Lotte had just got into an automobile with two complete strangers whose minds she was deaf to. They could be taking her anywhere.

“Who is my mother?” Lotte tried to keep her tone casual.

“Mmm?” The bowler hat man didn’t glance up from the pile of papers he was arranging in his briefcase. But the driver’s eyes flicked to her in the rearview mirror. “Well, I’m not sure she wants us to disclose that. And it is my job to keep confidences.” He reached inside his jacket and handed a small card to Lotte. It was made of thick cream-colored paper with smartly printed black and gold ink lettering.

Mr.Clarence C. Brahm

Chartered Executive

Johannes the little girl who strayed too far from her grandmother’s window, and all they found of her was a bright red coat in shreds.

A loud thump rattled above Lotte’s head, jolting her as something hit the roof of the automobile. Another noise came from the right. Her head whipped around, and she was face-to-face with one of the wolves. It stared through the window with blank metal eyes. Up close, she could see every shiny slick detail of its face, down to the fake whiskers engraved on its snout. It looked more like a skull than a real beast.

Mr.Brahm cried out, scrambling back as far away as he could as the metal beast clamped its teeth around the silver door handle and started to pull at it like a dog worrying at a bone. Except a dog wouldn’t have been strong enough to rip a door straight from its hinges. She crawled backward, casting around frantically for a weapon.

“Clarence!” Benedict’s voice came from the road ahead as he fended off the wolves. There were three surrounding him now. The closest one’s leg was damaged, hanging half off its mechanical joint, dragging along by a few wires. But the others were unscathed. “There’s a luster in the glove box!” Benedict cried.

Mr.Brahm didn’t move. He was drawn back into his seat, his spectacles askew, his hat crushed below him, staring slack-jawed at the metallic monsters. Lotte wasn’t even sure he’d heard Benedict.

But she had.

Lotte clambered up onto the seat, her panicked breaths coming short as she forced her mind to focus on those two things. Luster. Glove box. Luster. Glove box. Luster . She had no idea what a luster was. Or a glove box. The front seat was empty except for Benedict’s carefully folded jacket.

The metallic wolf flung itself against the door again with a violent clang. Lotte tried not to flinch. The Sisters would have chastised her for being afraid of death. Death was the return to the matter they were made of, after all. They were supposed to welcome death and their return into the fabric of the earth itself.

And Lotte would welcome it one day. But not today. She would meet death after she had met her mother.

In the rain, Benedict’s sword swung again, flashing the headlights into the front seat just long enough for Lotte to see the small compartment in the front panel of the automobile. The gap in the glass divider was just big enough for Lotte to fit her arm through. Her fingers scrabbled with the latch, shaking unsteadily. The wolf launched itself at the window again. The glass cracked under the impact, a spiderweb of fissures appearing. Another blow or two and the thing would be through.

She pressed her face against the divider, and finally she felt the latch give, revealing pens, a notebook, gum. And an engraved golden sphere.

Lotte didn’t know what a luster was, but unless it looked exactly like an unsharpened pencil, she had to guess the sphere was it.

She reached for it even as the wolf rocked the automobile again. The window shattered as the luster careened forward. Lotte’s fingers closed around it precariously as she heard a cry from behind her. Lotte wrenched her arm back through the divider, just in time to see the wolf’s iron jaw closing around Mr.Brahm’s collar, turning the paisley vest red with blood. His scream turned to a gurgle as the wolf dragged him out of the automobile. Lotte’s vision blurred with panic as she turned the ball over in her hands, hunting for a button, a switch, something that might ignite whatever it was. Distantly, Lotte noticed she was bleeding. She had sliced her thumb open on the latch of the compartment without realizing.

The wolf that had dragged Mr.Brahm out rounded on her now, crouching back on its mechanized hind legs, as if it could smell the blood through its cold steel nostrils.

Lotte’s hands shook, her blood smearing across the pattern on the surface of the ball.

Maybe now might be a good time to start praying.

And then the thing in Lotte’s hand exploded into light.

It was like a firework bursting in the darkness, flooding the whole automobile, and then the road around them, turning the rain incandescent, drowning out the gray skies and momentarily blinding Lotte.

She screwed her eyes shut. She wasn’t sure if it was against the light or against death. Like a child who thought the wolf’s razor teeth wouldn’t clamp around her flesh if she just hid under her blankets.

But she wasn’t dragged out of the car, and no metal teeth sank into her throat.

She waited, eyes shut, listening to the sound of her ragged breathing, until the gloom of the storm crept back into the corner of her vision. Finally she dared to open her eyes, blinking away the last of the spots of dancing light.

Benedict appeared at the ripped-off door. There was a faint streak of blood on his forearm, and he was soaked through from the rain. “Are you all right?”

Behind him, a metal wolf stared up at her with unseeing metallic eyes.

Lotte jerked back on instinct. But the wolf didn’t move. It was sprawled, dead, on the ground. Only it couldn’t be dead when it had never been alive to start with.

“Talk to me, Grace.” Benedict’s voice became more urgent. “Are you all right?”

That broke through. Lotte might not be able to make sense of much right now, but she was sure of her name, at least. “I’m not Grace.”

Benedict’s face closed off as he realized what he had said, the fear instantly replaced with that same unreadable expression that he had worn since the convent. He reached out, taking the golden orb from her hands. “Well done.”

“I didn’t…” Lotte shook her head, still unsure of what she had done.

Benedict caught her shaking hand, turning it over gently. Quickly, he wiped the blood from her thumb with the sleeve of his shirt. She had already stopped bleeding.

“We need to go.” Benedict stood up sharply.

Lotte was starting to come back to herself. “Mr.Brahm.” She sat up straight, hunting for the lawyer. “He was hurt. He needs—”

She caught sight of him, lying prone at the edge of the road, a second before Benedict said the obvious.

“He’s dead.” She could see that. His once proud paisley-print suit was covered in blood and dirt. His glasses were askew, and his bowler hat was missing. His eyes were wide in shock and fear, staring up at the rainy sky. “He was just a casualty,” Benedict said with the matter-of-fact voice of a man who had seen death before. “You were their real prey—this was an attempt to keep you from reaching Walstad.”

Her eyes wouldn’t leave Mr.Brahm. That was supposed to be her.

Her mouth felt numb as she asked, “Why would anyone care if I got to Walstad?”

“Your family cares.” Benedict rubbed his face, looking worn through. “They care a great deal about you not making it to the city alive.”