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Chapter 31

Lotte

A jet of flame erupted from the small pin in Lotte’s hand, blasting up from the balcony, well above the roof of the Paragon Hotel, nearly taking Lotte’s eyebrows with it.

If anyone were watching from the street, they might think that the Holtzfalls had somehow acquired a defiant infant dragon. But no, just Lotte.

“Better,” Nora commented from inside Lotte’s room, where she was going through the closet and pulling out clothing at an impossible rate. “By which I mean: better than when you were accomplishing nothing. But that charm exists to light candles, and I think you not only reduced the hypothetical candle to a pile of wax there, but also incinerated the dining table.”

“I don’t need magic to light a candle.” Lotte came in from the balcony, poking the small diamond-headed pin through the lapel of Theo’s jacket, frustrated. The tips of her fingers were turning red where she had been holding it, and she could feel her skin was close to blistering. She wasn’t sure if it was from the excess of magic or the fire. The idea of having magic at all was sitting on Lotte like an ill-fitting coat. After years of the Sisters preaching against it, shaking the discomfort was hard. She could almost feel Sister Brigitta at her back waiting with a rod. “I could just use matches.”

“You could.” Nora pulled a face at a dress she’d just extracted from the closet, a lacy thing that Modesty had insisted looked perfect on Lotte, before tossing it on the growing heap on the floor. “You could also strike flint and steel. Or maybe hit two rocks together until they spark. Or just wait for a lightning strike and—”

“I get it,” Lotte interrupted. She dropped into a chair, surveying the array of charms Nora had produced from…somewhere. Charms to disguise her appearance, charms to unlock doors, charms to shield herself in case a Grim should throw wine at her. Or something more lethal. Nora’s words.

Nora had tried to talk Lotte through how to use the charms, several times, with the impatience of someone for whom it came far too naturally to be able to effectively explain it.

“Magic is energy.” Nora had a tendency to press two fingers to the spot between her eyebrows when she got frustrated that someone wasn’t as quick as her. It was amazing there wasn’t a permanent dent in her forehead. “Everyone,” Nora went on as patiently as she could, “is born with varying amounts. Those in the first circle, closer to the woods, tend to be born with more. Those in the lower circles—well, it is part of the reason they are poor. But magic is formless, shapeless energy. Until it receives a conduit. A charm. The patterns on charms are all designed to shape a thread of magic to a certain purpose. Like a loom.”

“I don’t think that’s how looms work,” Lotte said.

“Oh, I forgot”—Nora rolled her eyes—“because growing up in the countryside makes you an expert in all bucolic crafts?”

“Looms aren’t a craft ,” Lotte said, “they’re a tool to make clothing. How do you think clothing is made? Do you think dresses are made by magic?”

“They are in the city. I think we’re getting off track.”

So far, the only way Lotte had been able to activate the charms was through her blood. Blood, life force, and magic were all tied together. Nora’s fingers pressed deeper into her forehead. Smearing blood across a charm was a crude, if effective way to power one, according to Nora. It was Lotte’s blood that had ignited the luster in the woods that had stopped the wolves. And yet still she felt unsettled at the idea of this intangible power laced through her veins.

Lotte wrapped her finger in a cloth napkin that had come with their breakfast, the pinprick on her index finger blooming bright across the white fabric. Just blood. If she really had so much power, shouldn’t she be able to see it?

Walstad hadn’t just…bounced back from a full-blown riot by dawn, seemingly much to Nora’s surprise. When she reluctantly accepted that nowhere would be open for breakfast, they had wound up back at the Paragon, ordering room service.

Room service was news to Lotte.

Up to now, she’d just waited . Hoping the maids might turn up with food. Nora didn’t seem like the waiting kind.

Nora tossed another dress aside. This one landed on the coffee table, knocking a newspaper off it to the ground.

Lukas Schuld to Be Executed Without Trial for Murder of Verity Holtzfall

The headline was from the Bullhorn . Underneath it was a letter marked: Isengrim’s Fourth Letter to the People of Walstad .

It was easy to forget that Nora was grieving. That she had lost her mother less than a fortnight ago. Lotte wasn’t sure of the right thing to say. But her cousin swiftly turned her attention to the mountain of clothing she had made. “I really did think Modesty had better dress sense than this.” She was gesturing at the pile of clothing. “I mean, if I’m being honest, she probably does, and she was making sure you wouldn’t outshine her in all those photographs she’s been using you for.” Nora’s gaze was sharp. “But of course, you knew that.”

Lotte held Nora’s gaze. There was no accusation in her cousin’s eyes, but Lotte still felt the need to defend herself. “I have to play a different game to fit here than you do.”

“No,” Nora said, “we’re playing the same game. I just started with a lot more pieces on the board.” It suddenly occurred to Lotte that somehow Nora understood her. More than Estelle ever had in a decade. And then Nora stood abruptly. “We should get moving. It’s nearly noon. Surely the department stores have recovered from bricks through windows by now.”

Going through the world with Nora was different than with Modesty.

Modesty had seemed to move through the world with a constant sense of need. Need for photographers. For attention. For clothes.

Nora had never needed for anything.

The dresses Modesty had picked were safe, they were unassuming. As they walked through a department store, stepping over the glass from a shattered window, Nora pulled out dresses made of cascades of silk and tulle, pearls and sequins that Lotte couldn’t help but run her hands over.

Lotte had pretended for years to fawn over the flashy clothing and jewels in the magazines with Estelle. But maybe she’d never cared because she just thought she’d never have them.

It was amazing what having brought out in the wanting.

And Lotte found that she wanted to be part of this world the same way that Nora was, on her own terms. Not pretending to be the little overwhelmed country bumpkin they expected her to be. But the only way to do that would be to win the trials. To prove she was as good as them. Better even.

When they finally left the department store, the newspaper kiosk on the corner was changing over the papers. The front page of every single one was dominated by the riots.

Each under wildly different headlines.

City Revolts Against Curfew!

Stricter Measures Needed as Lower Circles Push Back Against Safety Precautions

Trade Cut Short Due to Inconvenience on the Streets

“Well, it looks like you were right.” Nora picked a copy of the Bullhorn from the stand. “It wasn’t a trial after all. Or if it was, none of us came out of it with a ring.”

Whatever warmth she was feeling toward Nora cooled at the mention of the trials. They were competitors, she reminded herself. And there would be another trial soon.

“You really thought the Huldrekall would stage a trial that wrecked the whole city?” Lotte asked. The front page of the Herald showed wreckage. “People died.”

“People die in trials, it—” But whatever Nora was going to say cut off. Something flashed over Nora’s face as her eyes suddenly darted across the edition of the Bullhorn in her hand.

“What?” Lotte’s heart jumped as she craned over Nora’s shoulder, trying to see what her cousin had seen. Some sign that they had both been wrong. That this had been a trial. One they had failed.

But Nora folded the paper up quickly. “I need to go. I just figured out why there are so many spelling mistakes in Isengrim’s letters.”