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Chapter 19

Lotte

Grace Holtzfall was leaning against a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the city, tilting a newspaper to catch the morning light. An emerald-green scarf patterned with colorful birds was tied at her brow, so her blonde hair foamed up elegantly at the back of her head. She had a long strand of pearls wrapped twice around her neck, which swayed over a peacock robe. When she lifted her arms, light from the windows streamed through the sheer fabric, making the sleeves look like wings. Lotte hesitated in the doorway to the sitting room, watching Grace, her mother, a near stranger.

She was stillness in a flurry of movement.

Six hotel maids in matching black uniforms and white mobcaps were milling around the sitting room, setting out breakfast, plumping pillows, and gathering discarded pieces of clothing.

A sudden pang twinged in her chest. It could have been this way, always. Waking to find a mother waiting for her. Sleeping in a bed instead of on a cold floor. Having a family she belonged to. Being a Holtzfall was beyond anything she could have fathomed. But now she saw it. Now she ached for it.

It wasn’t too late.

She could still have this life.

As long as she won these trials. As long as she didn’t fail like she had last night.

Grace Holtzfall seemed to suddenly become aware of her as she shifted in the doorway. “Good news, darling,” she said in greeting, “you’re famous!”

Grace held up the newspaper. It took a moment for Lotte to realize it was a picture of her under a headline that read:

Secret Holtzfall Daughter Shock!

It was easy to see why the newspaper used the word shock . She looked like a startled animal, the flash illuminating her face. There were a dozen other papers scattered around the living space. Her face stared up from all of them.

Lotte, still half-drunk from sleep, was suddenly more aware of herself than she’d ever been. Like she could feel every eye in the city on her. Even as she caught one of the maids staring at her, the girl looking away quickly.

“You’re even bigger news than Modesty winning the first trial!” Grace Holtzfall was saying. “Front page on almost every paper! Patience will be fuming. But maybe my sister will learn everyone is sick of looking at her daughter’s face. Although, of course, it would be a lot better if the news were of you winning the first trial.”

That landed painfully. Lotte had stood defiant in front of her grandmother. So sure she could prove her worth. Her right to belong to this family. To stay in it. Only to fall at the first hurdle.

Questions had been spinning around her, too many for her to answer as people with cameras penned her in. And then she’d caught sight of Honora Holtzfall. So at ease while Lotte felt so out of place, watching her struggle, contempt in her eyes. And Lotte had ached to even pretend she was as at ease as Honora looked. And in that moment, one journalist had stepped close and asked, “Do you think you’ll ever be one of them? Even if you do win? Do you think you deserve to win the trials after lying to everyone for ten years? After turning your back on a friend this morning?”

In the blur or exhaustion, she hadn’t even wondered until later how the journalist knew about Estelle. Everything had just caught up to her at once. The day. The lack of sleep. Before she knew what was happening, her vision was blurring. There were tears in her eyes. Lotte had turned away, trying to hide it. But it was too late.

Crying wasn’t a sign of temperance.

“I won all the trials in my generation, you know,” Grace was saying. “I mean, all but one. Verity won the ring for selflessness with that nonsense with the birds.” Lotte had no idea what the nonsense with the birds was. “And I suppose one is all it takes. My point is, if I can triumph, you should certainly be able to. All that time in the countryside ought to have served some good.”

Some good. The words were so similar to something the Sisters of the Blessed Briar might have said. A night in the briar pit will do you some good. Scrubbing the kitchen floor instead of sleeping will do you some good. Lotte felt like a child who had been running toward her mother’s arms, only for her mother to move out of the way at the last second, and anger and hurt rose up. “Is that why you abandoned me there? Because you thought it would make me good?”

Grace’s face was a changing carousel of emotions, none of which Lotte could read with the hindern on. But it settled quickly into blithe smiling again. “Oh, you know what I mean. Everyone is always going on about how much simpler life is for the peasants.” Grace Holtzfall waved her hand vaguely. “Not corrupted like us city dwellers.”

Lotte wanted her mother to say that she hadn’t abandoned her. That she had always wanted her. That she’d given her up against her will. She wanted her to say that Mercy Holtzfall was wrong last night. That she hadn’t just brought her back for the competition, for the money. That she loved her whether or not she was good enough to win the trials.

Lotte moved uneasily toward the impeccably dressed table. It was piled high with pastries, and a polished silver teapot steamed. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and her stomach turned over as she picked a flaky swirl topped with berries. She felt immediately uncouth and out of place as pastry crumbs scattered across the white tablecloth.

Last night, Lotte had barely taken anything in, stumbling exhausted to a bed. But in the daylight, she could see that her mother’s hotel room was immense. From the ceiling, a golden chandelier shaped like drooping palm trees illuminated polished wood with gilded edges and stark cream furniture that looked untouched. The walls were papered with a bright blue sky, penned in behind golden arches. Flocks of painted exotic birds were dotted around the room, and as she watched, a bright green bird took off from its perch and landed on another one, painted feathers stilling.

All her childhood, Lotte had imagined her mother living in some hovel, the kind the Sisters warned awaited young girls who got too big for their country boots and tried to make it in the big city.

“I always thought you couldn’t afford to keep me.”

“You were right.” Grace didn’t meet Lotte’s eye, but there was a bitterness to her words that Lotte couldn’t mistake. “There are costs in this world that are greater than money, Ottoline.” Grace slid down across from her, flashing her bare leg under the silk robe. “And now I can’t afford not to have you back. The winner of the Veritaz decides whether everyone else in the family gets anything or nothing at all. And I can’t pay for this room with my beauty.”

As Lotte reached for a second pastry, she was aware of her mother’s eyes following the movement. She pulled her hand back, not wanting to look greedy.

“Everything was fine when Verity was the one holding the purse strings. But Prosper and Patience hate me for not turning on Verity with them. Their children are not going to give me a single scrap. I might have been able to count on Honora once, but my mother has gotten to her over the years. If I’m to afford to keep you, we have to win.” We. Grace moved, brushing hair off Lotte’s face with a smile. The tiny gesture made Lotte ache. She had watched Mrs.Hehn move hair from Estelle’s face a thousand times, even as Estelle would shake her mother away like an inconvenience. Every time, Lotte would watch enviously, and feel her own skin ache for someone to care about her like that. In that moment, Lotte would have done anything to keep her mother. To keep being someone’s daughter. Whatever her mother wanted her for, it was enough to be wanted.

There was a sharp rap at the door, shattering the moment between them.

“Come in!” Grace dropped her hands, and Lotte felt the cold rush in. The door swung open, admitting an older woman in a sharp gray uniform. She had one hand wrapped around the arm of a young maid like a vise.

“Miss Holtzfall, my apologies for disturbing you,” the older woman fawned, “but I caught this little sneak trying to send a message to the Herald .”

The woman in gray held out a note. It was scribbled hastily on a piece of paper, The Paragon Hotel marked in gold writing at the top. Grace’s gaze scanned the paper quickly before flicking it away.

Lotte read it as it landed on the table between the pastries and fresh fruit.

Lotte hadn’t realized they were being watched. She felt the hairs on her neck stand up in fear. But Grace only sighed, as if this were a common inconvenience.

“You think my discussions with my daughter are the business of the Herald ?”

The maid finally looked up. “The papers will pay good money for any word on the new Holtzfall. If I didn’t do it, someone else would.”

Lotte slipped the hindern off her finger. The desperation under the defiance poured off the young maid. She couldn’t lose her job. She was supporting her mother and two little sisters. If she lost this job, they might be turned out onto the street. But she had pride. She wasn’t going to beg.

“If they had , someone else would be the one being dismissed right now.” Grace yawned.

“Do you know how much we get paid to work here?” The maid’s fear uncoiled into anger now. “Do you know how much we make for cleaning up after you day and night, breaking our backs, carrying up tray after tray of food that you barely touch!” Lotte could feel the cramp of hunger in this girl’s stomach. “And you’re talking about needing money while you wear diamonds. You have everything , and you leave nothing for the rest of us.”

Lotte knew what it was to be hungry. To be desperate. But Grace looked impassive. “Well, luckily, you no longer have to worry about making your pitiful salary anymore.”

“Don’t—” Lotte started, but Grace was already rising from her seat, moving toward a side table.

“And of course, before you go, we will have to make sure you cannot try to tattle on us again.” She pulled out from a drawer what looked like a small pocket watch with a mirrored surface, turning a dial before snapping it open. She held it in front of the girl’s face, as if she were showing her the reflection. A small spark of light coursed from the ring on her mother’s finger into the pocket mirror, sparking whatever charm this was.

And with her hindern resting on the table, Lotte heard the girl’s memories slip away. They glided out of her mind and into the mirror. The memory of frantically scribbling the note in the linen closet before Matron Winterhalter walked in, catching her in the act. The memory of hearing the argument. The memory of coming into work this morning, eager to set eyes on the new Holtzfall girl. Gossiping about her while they changed into their uniforms at the crack of dawn.

Grace snapped the mirror shut again. The girl’s mind stumbled into the present moment, clouded with confusion. Lotte could hear her struggle to make sense of things. To bridge the missing hours. The rising panic as she realized she had lost her job and had no idea what she had done wrong.

“That will be all.” Grace Holtzfall waved a hand coolly.

In a moment, the girl was gone, pulled out of the door by the matron. Grace was already turning away, the other maids going back to their work as if nothing had happened. But Lotte’s whole being had gone cold.

“You stole her memories.”

“It’s a simple memorandum charm.” Grace dropped the small mirror onto the settee lazily.

Lotte could still hear the young maid’s memories inside. Like a distant conversation muffled from another room. Then Grace rested her hand on her cheek again. “It’s to protect us.” Her mother wore a faintly amused look on her face, and Lotte felt a flash of it through her palm, of Grace enjoying her na?veté at how things worked. Her mother expected a demure wide-eyed country girl. She wanted that. Lotte couldn’t show her the angry convent-raised ingrate she had grown into instead. “There is a great deal you’re going to have to learn if you want to be part of this family, Ottoline.”