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Chapter 36

Lotte

Be good or I’ll turn you out for the trolls to eat.

It was an old refrain. One every child had heard from their mothers at some time or another. Even children without mothers, like Lotte, had heard it. Maybe, once upon a time, it was a real threat. Back in the days of towering dark woods, when trolls still roamed in the night. But children hadn’t feared trolls in hundreds of years.

But now that there was one standing between them and the door, a strange, ancient fear spread through Lotte. As if her bloodline remembered being afraid of trolls, even if she didn’t. And it felt like a hundred generations were screaming at her to run.

Marble knuckles dragged slickly across the ground as it pulled itself fully free from the checkerboard flooring, tombstone teeth clashing together with a noise that echoed around the filing cabinets.

Theo moved with a sureness that could only come from years of training, placing himself between Lotte and the troll. “I’ll hold it off,” Theo said, voice low and sure, without looking at her, turning his sword over in his hand. “You run. Now.”

She couldn’t run. Lotte might not know all a Holtzfall should, but unless this was some elaborate security measure Nora had neglected to mention, she was sure of one thing: Finally, after days of waiting, after letting uncertainty worm its way into her chest so deeply that she had tried to look for a way out from the Holtzfalls, this was the next trial.

Her chance to prove that she belonged.

And she wouldn’t win by running.

But she wouldn’t prove anything by dying either.

Every story Lotte had ever heard about trolls flicked through her mind at once. There must be something that would help her. Trolls were stupid. They were vulnerable to iron, like all things born of magic. They followed their prey by smell. They hid in mountains in the day because sunlight turned them back to stone.

The lumen charm.

Lotte lifted her shaking hands, fumbling for the ring on her finger. If there was ever a time…

She tried to focus her mind. To feed magic into it slowly and surely—

The troll roared, advancing on them, its heavy marble feet crashing into the floor with every step. Actually, now wasn’t the time. Lotte moved to Theo, quickly, slicing her hand open across his sword, blood welling painfully in her palm. The blood streamed down her fingers, sparking the lumen charm on her finger to life.

In Nora’s hand last night, the ring emitted a warm glow that cast enough light for them to see by. Now, brought to life by her magic-drenched blood, it bloomed into life like a falling star.

The light bounced off her chainmail dress with a thousandfold the power of the candles, turning her from a girl into a blazing silhouette and flooding the entire hall. The troll roared in anger, its arms swinging violently as it raged against the sudden light. It staggered sideways into the filing cabinets, sending them crashing down, paperwork raining around it.

“Lotte,” Theo urged, “we have to go.”

But still, Lotte hesitated. This was a trial, she was sure of that. But how was she supposed to win it? Was the test just to survive , if she fled and escaped with her life would that be enough? Or was she meant to trick the troll into surrender like clever Hans in the stories?

The troll swung blindly, trying to find the source of this false sun. Its arms sent two more filing cabinets crashing to the ground. But no paper scattered from these ones. They crashed hollow and empty. And behind them was…a safe.

A safe without a combination or a keyhole, without a handle even. All Lotte could see was a tightly fitted metal door made of thick iron. But all at once Lotte felt certainty wash through her. If she were hiding a secret child, a safe with no lock was exactly where she would hide it.

“Lotte!” Theo called after her as she moved toward the safe, her hand raised, the light blazing against the troll. With her other hand, she tried to dig her fingers around the door to prize it open. But it wouldn’t move. She circled the safe, trying to find something on it, a charm or a lock. Some way to open it.

The troll roared again, and Lotte staggered, catching herself on the safe with her sliced-open hand. She pulled away, blood smeared across the safe. But instead of the blood marking the metal door, the safe seemed to drink it up, the smear of red disappearing into the iron.

And with a whispering click of the lock, the door swung open, spilling the contents across the floor.

Holtzfall blood to get into Holtzfall secrets. And now those secrets were scattering out.

Lotte wasn’t sure what she’d expected inside. Paperwork, maybe. A certificate of her birth like the ones she’d seen for her cousins.

Instead, glass tablets slid across the floor around her. Still holding the light high as she advanced, Lotte snatched up one. It wasn’t just glass, she realized. It was two pieces of glass with blood pressed between them. The etched pattern across the glass surface gave it away as a charm. On the back of the one she was holding was a small label written in faded black pen.

Child J.

Lotte could feel her heart in her throat even as she fell to her knees, frantically rifling through the glass tablets. Child T. Child R. Child H. Child F. Some of them had numbers too. Child S2. Child S3 . But she didn’t see an L. She riffled through frantically until in her hand she saw a small tablet marked Child O .

Not Lotte. Ottoline.

She still forgot that was her real name sometimes. Lotte’s hand closed around the glass a second before Theo’s hand closed around hers.

She could feel it racing through his mind, the desperation to get out of here. The troll was still raging, thrashing against the light pouring from the lumen. Last night with Nora they’d been in and out without leaving a trace. Tonight…well, any chance of concealing the fact that she’d been here was gone with the troll. Would her mother know that she’d been here hunting for her father? Would she care?

She tightened her hand around the glass. Child O.

And they ran.