They reached a tower with a locked door, but Percy was undeterred, pulling out a hairpin, and, like someone out of a kids’ spy film, he unlocked the door.
They reached a giant statue of a bird with stone steps around leading up the tower. It watched him, he was sure of it; the statue was watching him, the bird’s eyes the eyes of the school itself.
A plaque beneath the bird read “Elwin.” Binah walked up to it and began grappling with the middle letter. Ollie watched, curious, until at last she gave it a sharp turn, causing cogs to grind, and the W slowly became an M.
A door creaked open and Ollie saw what could only be described as a secret passage. It led down into a dark basement that was decorated with items that he recognized in an instant: fairy lights and handmade bunting, floral upholstery and pressed flowers. This was Lottie’s touch.
The whole room was curved, a circular cavern with cold stone walls, made warmer with the golden fairy lights and glowing stars that hung from the ceiling by invisible string. It was like stepping into the Milky Way. A blackboard in the middle had “Have a good summer” written in multicolored bubble writing: Lottie’s. In stark contrast to the cosmic and colorful decoration were piles of carefully covered paintings and a mahogany desk that looked about a million years old, with stacks of papers, journals, and books that looked even older. All these ancient items were gathered in a recess with a respect that gave it the energy of a shrine.
“Who else knows about this place?” Ollie asked through shaky breath.
“It’s our friend Lottie’s.” Raphael grinned, clearly immensely pleased with himself and his friends for having a secret base. “She found it, and only we know about it.”
Ollie resisted the urge to inform him that he probably knew Lottie better than any of them, but he wouldn’t have been able to anyway, because Binah rushed over to the dresser and began searching through its contents.
Ollie felt tainted watching her, like he was spying on something very secret.
The other two boys looked like they felt the same, but there was also a hunger to learn more about the unknown parts of their school.
“Binah, should we really—”
“FOUND IT!” Binah shot up, a leather-bound book in her hands that looked about ready to turn to dust. Binah flicked through the pages, then froze. “My goodness!”
“What?” Ollie asked, the three boys looking between each other. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Binah replied, distracted, her eyes scanning the dusty pages. “Only that it feels a little odd, you know?”
“What does?”
Closing the diary, Binah pushed her glasses up her nose, the light glinting off the frames. “For the first time in my life I have absolutely no idea what any of this means.” She smiled, carefully placing the diary in a waterproof bag. “We’ll just have to hope Lottie can figure it out on her own . . .”
26
THE ART DEPARTMENT WAS VIRTUALLY empty. Scraps of material and streaks of paint covered the giant oak table where Miko sat opposite Lottie, adding the final touches to Aoi Tōyō’s hair ornament with aggressive concentration.
Since Lottie’s conversation with Sayuri at the museum, they’d started to fall back into a routine again, Miko giving orders, the two of them methodically working on their pieces, and all the while Lottie waited for a message from Binah, knowing there was nothing more she could do until she got that diary. As far as she knew, Haru had made no other attempt to find the treasure; it was almost weird, like he’d given up, but Lottie wouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security. She needed to find whatever was hidden if she had any hope of getting Sayuri to work with them.
In front of her, Lottie’s sketchbook lay open, filled with drawings of the vampire cat, alongside a hideous demon Goat Man with an odd resemblance to the king—if the king were scary and had horns.
Pushing her hair back, she tried to clear her thoughts. The question remained, buzzing in her mind in a way that gave her a headache: Who was the Goat Man? And what did he want?
She’d thought the idea that everything connected back to the Maravish princess had been absurd, but the more she thought about it, the more she feared it was true.
Takeshin, Saskia, Jamie, Tompkins—you could connect the dots, and every time it took you back to the princess and Rosewood.
And if this was true, what would that do to Ellie?
“It sure would be easier to find the Master of Leviathan if we had more info.” Lottie tapped her chin with her pencil. “If only we could all join forces and share our information.” Pouting, Lottie stared down Miko, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Urusai!” she muttered, crinkling her nose like she’d smelled something bad. “Put it out of your mind. Sayuri and Emelia told us not to work with you, so I do what they say.”
It had become their own personal routine, working on costumes and bickering over Leviathan.
“If you’re not going to help us, at least let me add the tiara design to our Aoi Tōyō costumes.” Lottie tried to put on her most reasonable voice.
“No. No tiara. The energy will confuse the dance.”
“Not if Aoi Tōyō is good enough.”
“No tiara. No treasure. No Leviathan info.”
“Then what about Sayuri’s family?” It had occurred to Lottie that it might be helpful to know more about them if it was a secret passed down through the generations.
“You’re being nosy.”
“Please, Miko, I just want to help, and Sayuri didn’t give you any orders to not talk about her family.”
Miko let out a long sigh, a strand of her blue hair falling over her left eye like a scar.
“She lives with her grandfather, her dad works in Singapore, and her mother is absent.”
“Why?” Lottie knew how intrusive she was being, but she couldn’t shake off
