Miko scowled again, rolling whatever she was about to say around in her head.
“They had a death in the family, her mother’s sister; they were very close. It was hard on all of them.”
“What happened to her?” she asked before she could stop herself, remembering the sad look on Sayuri’s face.
Miko looked away, tapping the table distractedly in a way that was unlike her.
“She was dealt a lot of sadness; she lost a baby. Eventually that sadness ate her up completely.”
The words clung in Lottie’s head, the awfulness of it all, how one terrible event could bleed through a whole family, spreading stains of sadness down to each generation.
“Miko-chan? Lottie-chan?” A recognizable voice called through the art rooms, and she could practically hear the smirk on his lips.
“Hai!” Miko called in response, clearly relieved to have a distraction.
Rio emerged around the corner, carrying two bags, one of which he handed to Miko, filled with materials she’d requested, and the other he slapped right on top of Lottie’s sketchbook.
Lottie looked up at him in irritation.
“This arrived for you today.” He smiled down at her as if he’d just done her the world’s biggest favor. “You’re welcome.”
She reached into the bag, fingers meeting with soft padding and paper. Miko and Rio watched her curiously as she opened the package and pulled out the contents, a gift it seemed, wrapped in canary-yellow tissue paper that reminded her of . . .
“Binah!” Lottie said.
Good luck solving the mystery.
The moment the wrapping fell away, a transporting scent took over the room. Roses, pungent and sweet and bursting with a tantalizing call back home, back to Rosewood Hall. Lili’s diary.
It was so wonderful that it ached to even hold it. Her clue, her key to hopefully solving Takeshin’s mystery and teaming up with Sayuri.
A bookmark poked out of the diary, yellow, the color of Stratus. With trembling hands Lottie turned to it to find water-damaged pages. She could just make out the words in English.
1642
In a most curious turn of events the boat has landed and we find ourselves hiding in Japan, where I am unwelcome and more welcome than ever, for I have met a girl named Kou. She is my age and comparably improper . . .
It hit Lottie like a lightning bolt. It had to be the same Kou! It had to. That’s why the name felt familiar; she’d seen it before in this very diary. Liliana had stowed away to Japan during the Sakoku period, when no foreigners were allowed to enter Japan without permission, and that’s why she’d never been found.
How did she get here? Did she know that’s where she was heading?
She turned the page, expecting more, her fingers twitching with anticipation for the whole story.
Only there was nothing. The next pages spoke nothing of Japan, or of Kou, or any such adventures. Someone had torn out all the pages. It was as if a whole section of Liliana’s life had been erased from history.
What followed instead were pages of sketches that seemed to have nothing to do with anything. Suns, moons, sparkling trees, horned catlike creatures, and magpies in great flocks, and one image that caught her eye above the others—a sword. Even on the paper it looked sharp enough to cut the world in two, with an intricate handle that showed masterful precision.
Reluctantly she pulled her eyes away from the elaborate drawings and turned to the only other page with writing on it from before Lili arrived in England.
Twirling calligraphy spread out to take up as much room on the paper as possible, but there were just seven words. A list.
A cat
A hiding place
A sword
Lottie skimmed through the pages a few more times, slowly losing hope that she would find something else, anything at all that might give her a clue to the puzzle of the hidden treasure. But no—nothing.
She very nearly didn’t notice the center of the book. It was frayed, a page removed just like the others, except it had been taken out right up to the spine with deliberate precision, barely perceptible tear marks that one could almost miss. She pondered the missing paper, running her fingers along the jagged edge, nose so close she could smell the decades of dust.
How odd, she thought, that someone would take such special care with this page only.
“What’s that?”
Lottie looked up, jolted out of her thoughts by Miko’s voice, and slammed the diary shut.
Miko watched her suspiciously, eyes narrowing over the ancient relic.
“It’s . . .” Lottie’s words caught in her throat, unable to articulate what the diary meant, what it was. “I have to go and find Ellie.”
She packed up her stuff before they could question her, Miko’s voice following her on the way out. “Don’t forget our show is very soon!”
“Yep!” Lottie shouted back, jumping over a box of paintbrushes, and feeling for the first time in a while that she was getting closer to the truth.
It should have been easy to find Ellie; she had a free day, so she was going to keep an eye on Jamie. He’d made an almost complete recovery, which was fantastic news, except for the fact that he was on the move again, so they had to keep watch in a way he wouldn’t notice, finding things they needed to do that gave them an excuse to be near him. Just as long as they kept Haru from being with him alone. It was unclear if Jamie had figured out what they were doing, but if he had, he hadn’t said anything.
Lottie had not missed a single shift, using any excuse to be by his side, relieved to see him well again, so it came as a surprise to her that Ellie was nowhere to be found.
“She went to the dojo,” Lola and Micky said in unison, wiping flour from their noses.
“But she doesn’t have class today.”
Shrugging, the twins lowered their faces in concentration over the intricate raindrop cake they were decorating.
Lottie couldn’t really blame them for not having more urgency about the whole
