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Chapter 84

Lotte

Lotte had tried to flee this family before.

On the night of the second trial when she had broken in and found the bloodvenn.

She thought then that she was holding a way out of this family. But her mother had been right the first time.

There was no way out of being a Holtzfall.

They stood now. Three Holtzfall heiresses. On the edge of the woods.

Modesty, Nora, and Lotte, together, their rings on their hands.

The boy in the knight’s uniform who looked like a strange echo of Theo clenched his jaw. “We haven’t met,” he said to Lotte now. “You must be Lotte.”

“It’s Ottoline Holtzfall to you.”

She could feel her blood coating the charm.

She could hold it for now, but not forever.

Lotte met Nora’s gaze, looking for a plan there. Or part of a plan.

Nora held her eyes a long moment, as if considering, before glancing behind them for just a fraction of a second. Glancing toward the woods, where the sun had just touched the edge of the trees. Toward the only place that they could run and no one could follow them.

Stay out of the woods, little one . There you will find dangers you don’t yet know how to face.

They turned, even as Lotte dropped the shielding charm.

The Grims staggered forward, but they were too slow.

As one, the three surviving heiresses entered the woods.