“Lottie’s waiting for you,” he whispered.
“No,” Ellie replied. “She’s waiting for us.”
29
PEEPING THROUGH THE HEAVY VELVET curtains, Lottie was filled with a giddy, nervous energy. It felt like she was back at Maradova during the summer ball, ready to be presented as the fake princess. The crowd sent out a deep hum of chatter, the lights low. But it wasn’t just the play that had Lottie feeling so excited—through her peephole she could see Ellie and Jamie, and they were sitting together.
She’d done it; she’d got them to be a team again, and that meant it was time to turn her attention to more important things. Lottie should have been focusing on the play, making sure it went well so she could get high enough grades to get back into Rosewood, only there was something much bigger at stake. She still hadn’t even begun to solve the mystery of Takeshin’s secret treasure.
She was running out of time.
She had to find something—a clue, anything—that could help her find this hidden treasure. It was the only way to get Sayuri on their side and get the information Banshee had. She was still convinced there was a clue somewhere in the diary, that Rosewood and Takeshin were connected, that they were connected.
“Kabocha-chan . . .”
Lottie turned to see a beautiful and terrifying black cat on its hind legs. This was the feline Rio, a performance so perfect it still made Lottie catch her breath. She looked over her and Miko’s work, the black silky fur that gave way to a spectacular secret. No detail had been overlooked in the costume, and the result was a stunning beast that would make anyone’s blood run cold.
“Are you nervous?” Rio asked with a cocky grin.
“I’m not nervous,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m concentrating.”
The lights in the auditorium dimmed, a spotlight spreading over the stage from where Sayuri stepped out from between the curtains. Her porcelain skin glimmered even brighter, and she looked to Lottie now like an unbending spirit.
She introduced the plays in Japanese—lines Lottie had heard over and over during rehearsals, so she understood what was being said.
“Welcome, Takeshin Gakuin summer students. Tonight we will be showcasing the best of the theater courses. From acting, costumes, and makeup to lighting, music, and set design, we hope to immerse you into some wondrous and terrifying tales. The three short plays tonight are all inspired by Kou Fujiwara’s three favorite folk stories: Tanabata, Kaguya-hime, and, last but not least, Fujiwara Sensei’s most beloved story, Nabeshima Bakeneko. We hope you will think fondly of our school’s founder while you enjoy the fantastical display.”
Then the darkness behind the curtains enveloped Sayuri, and with one collective intake of breath the audience was ready.
At the back of the theater Sayuri reappeared beside her Partizan. Haru leaned over and whispered something to her that made Sayuri turn rigid.
Before Lottie could dwell on it, the music started and the audience vanished into darkness.
The first play was Tanabata, and told of two star-crossed lovers brought together by the girl’s father, a god, but forced to separate by him too. Tears made of dancing ribbon bled from her eyes, a fabric river of woe growing on the stage that moved her father enough to let them meet on the seventh day of the seventh month every year. But it was not enough; she could only meet her lover with the help of a flock of magpies, who would make a bridge for her over the river that separated the two. If the magpies failed, they could not meet and would have to wait another year.
Magpies, made of black and white tissue paper illuminated in rainbow lights, fluttered above the audience in dazzling flocks, moved by hidden fans on the stage.
Lottie’s mind’s eye burned with the image of the magpies in Liliana’s diary, flocks of them covering the pages. It was uncanny that something so similar to the pages of Lili’s diary would also appear in one of Kou’s favorite plays.
Moments later, the second play began, the velvet curtains revealing a papier-mâché bamboo forest behind, shrouded with dry ice, a single sparkling trunk, thick and glittering, in the center of the stage.
About to look for Sayuri in the audience, Lottie froze, pulled back to the scene in front of her. A scene she knew so well she could practically feel the mossy earth beneath her toes. The stage had become Takeshin’s own woods, the Kiri Shinrin, with its endless fog and the single impossibly large bamboo hidden within it. And it was there again, the pictures in the diary of the sparkling tree. Even though they weren’t bamboo trees in the diary, she couldn’t help feeling they were connected, that it was a sign.
There was so little time until they left for England, so little time to piece this together, and in the back of her head, frayed like the edge of the torn paper in the diary, were those strange words, and the unlikely possibility that they were important.
A cat
A hiding place
A sword
“Kabocha-chan?”
A voice dragged her from her thoughts. Miko, blue as ever, but more of a navy in the shadows backstage.
“We are next.”
Lottie nodded, but her mind was still half stuck in the mystery of Liliana’s diary. It was as if she were split in two; her body was here in the theater, nervous and excited, but her soul had been spirited away by the performances and stories, floating across the school in a cloud of curiosity.
“Where is your head?” Miko asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “You are somewhere else.”
Locking eyes with Miko, Lottie let everything sink in, the diary, the trees, the fairy tales, the page with the mysterious list, Sayuri and herself.
“I think there is a secret hidden in these plays,” she whispered in the dark, clutching Miko’s arm, just as the curtain came down and thundering applause filled the room.
Miko slowly plucked Lottie’s hand off her. “Then you’d better
