White double doors creaked open, hazy blue light from a mounted screen leaking across the woven pink rug.
The first thing Lottie noticed was that every member of the Wolfson family was wearing their wolf pendant. A token of solidarity. A reminder that if you wore one too, you belonged. It should have put her mind at ease to know she had a pack behind her, but the glittering eyes of the wolves nestled at the base of each person’s throat suddenly felt ravenous, ready to eat her up.
The second thing Lottie noticed was her princess. Dwarfed by an antique velvet armchair, Ellie looked small and stranded in its center, more ill than ever. Her mother and father stood at a distance, still as statues behind the matching sofa. They looked icily handsome, even beneath the dark shadow that stretched over them from the pillars that lined the room. The queen’s expensive perfume mingled uncomfortably with the faint stench of Ellie’s sickness.
“Lottie.” Queen Matilde attempted an apologetic smile. “There’s been some bad news. We feel it best that you, Eleanor, and Jamie see this together.”
As though on cue from some invisible signal, Simien joined Nikolay by the huge desk in the corner, where a sliver of light seeped out between the closed curtains, silhouetting him. He pushed a button under the table and the screen mounted on the wall came to life.
“It’s clear to me that all these children want is attention, and it’s time we kept them in check.”
Bile flooded Lottie’s mouth.
Aimee Wu, with her deceptively pleasant smile, was on the news discussing their impromptu interview at the gates of Rosewood, but it felt to Lottie as though she were listening to her own eulogy.
“A secret formula that controls people’s minds? An evil society?” Aimee smiled again, shaking her head in pity. “It all sounded like nonsense to me. I was glad to finally get a chance to speak face to face with the princess. Or, as I like to call her, the ringleader of this operation.”
The screen cut to a shaky clip of Lottie fumbling over her words, half hidden by Samuel as she tried to respond to the barrage of questions. It was edited to make her look confused and tired. Then she watched herself say the worst possible thing.
“My friends from Rosewood and myself, and Leviathan found the formula because we discovered the key to where it was hidden . . .”
Lottie remembered saying those words, but they had been answers to two separate questions. This made it sound like they’d all found the key together, like she and her friends and Leviathan were working together.
Everything was spinning; everything was hot. She could smell the acrid tang of her sweat, an enormous pressure bearing down on her, stealing her breath.
“I thought you stopped people from filming?” Jamie asked, his voice steady.
“We couldn’t guarantee it,” Nikolay responded, rubbing the stubble on his chin.
They turned their attention back to the screen as Aimee Wu reappeared.
“She was completely out of it,” she was saying. “She even stumbled on her way into the school.” Then came an image of Lottie splayed on the ground, her skirts crumpled. The humiliation was like a hot poker searing her stomach, and it was followed by something far, far worse: a zoomed-in shot through Rosewood’s gilded gates of Lottie and Ellie, glancing back over their shoulders at the media parading behind them. They’d officially brought Ellie into the nightmare.
“The princess—with a close friend, who looks like a bad influence if you ask me.” Aimee sighed—deep, regretful, as though she had no choice about what she had to say next. “I think people have a right to know the truth.” A pause. Aimee did not break her gaze from the camera as she delivered the final, killer question. “And what is the truth?”
Looking down the camera lens, it was as though Aimee were speaking directly to Lottie now, all the way over in Maradova. “The truth is that these spoiled children are liars. This evil Leviathan group could be closer than we think.”
Aimee’s menacing glare vanished as Queen Matilde snapped the footage off. Lottie could find no relief in the quiet that followed.
Ellie spoke first. “Wait, I don’t understand. Is she saying we’re lying, or working with Leviathan?”
“She’s being intentionally vague; they’ll roll with whatever story people cling to.” Jamie spoke matter-of-factly, but somehow that made everything feel even more out of control.
“Why would they . . . I don’t understand, I . . .” Lottie had to take a deep breath to try to calm down, but it didn’t help; she couldn’t seem to get enough air. This was her job, to make people like and trust the Maravish princess. She had failed. “These were facts. Everyone believed us. They’re facts!”
“They’re changing the facts,” countered Jamie.
“You can’t just change facts,” Ellie fumed, her fists balling.
If Jamie was resistant to the storm, Ellie was the storm.
The king cleared his throat, resting a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “When people are scared they will believe whatever suits them the most.” The softness in the king’s voice was unexpected. “Unfortunately it seems the news of an unknown formula and an evil society is too unpleasant; it’s more convenient to believe that it’s something they can control, like a group of troubled teenagers.”
A polite knock at the door caught their attention and Simien went to answer it, revealing Midori and Edwina, and from the looks on their faces, it was more bad news. Quiet murmuring echoed through the gilded room and, though seemingly impossible, Nikolay Olav achieved a new level of grave and serious.
“Media vans have parked at the perimeter of the palace grounds; they can’t get in, but I will need to organize more severe security measures.”
“So what do we do?” Jamie pulled back his shoulders. “I think the best course of action is to move both girls as far away from all of this as possible. But in such a way that will not be read as running away.”
“Yes,
