Her Partizan training kicked in, an instinctual drive to map out the surrounding area and locate every weak spot. If she had someone to protect, she would place watchers in the woodland, people to keep guard, so she had to assume that’s what they’d done too. A school full of rich, important children was bound to be riddled with security.
It had occurred to her that she might simply walk through the front gate and pretend to be a student, but she couldn’t risk it. She could just imagine the smug look on Haru’s face if she got caught on her rogue mission.
His name sent violent volts of anger through her, and she furiously clenched her fists until pain shot up her arm. Sweet horrible pain. Why did they all like him so much? Why was it never her? She deserved her revenge. She deserved to take something from that disgusting marshmallow of a princess, and she was going to prove her worth.
Someone needed to get that letter they’d let the princess find, and Ingrid was going to make sure it was her—but most importantly she was going to make sure they would never see it again. No letter, no plan, and then they could move forward with the Hamelin Formula.
A grin spread across her face as she imagined Jamie’s expression, warped and pained, when he saw the little gift she would leave him on his princess’s face. But the image began to deform, morphing into that twisted demonic look, the empty gold eyes, an endless void of nothing reaching into her as the terrible monster bore down on her, breaking her deep inside her bones.
She blinked the image away, her breath catching, and she realized she was cradling herself, her bandaged arms wrapped around her own body. It was a horrible picture and she shook her arms free, fresh pain tingling from within.
Stupid.
The symbol on the king’s letter burned inside Lottie’s head. That triangle, with three surrounding circles, in red ink—it was undeniable. It had shone in the beam from the flashlight, teasing her, and there was no hiding from it now; it was the same symbol that had been on all the love letters at Takeshin.
Lottie needed to go somewhere that would give her strength, a place where she could process what it all meant. The letters felt heavy in her bag where she stood at the edge of the Rose Wood, her mind twisted like the roots beneath her feet.
In her mind the Rose Wood was a tangled maze of brambles and roots, with no way of knowing where you’d come from or where you were going. That was not the wood that greeted her today.
There were no paths in the Rose Wood, which was almost entirely untouched by people, but the way to the great oak tree was as clear and easy as if someone were guiding her.
Lottie pondered with each step.
The king’s strange reaction to them going to Takeshin.
His own mark on that terrible letter.
It was the kind of written proof that could cause a huge controversy, putting the Maravish royal family’s very integrity on trial.
So why on earth would Leviathan want such a thing?
Lottie couldn’t figure it out, but it told her with absolute clarity what she’d spent so long telling Ellie in her head. That everything Leviathan did led back to her and her family.
Strangely nervous, Lottie pushed herself toward the clearing, which was glowing amber. It was a beacon calling her forward, and she would not leave it until she understood what was going on.
The plan was simple. Ingrid would trek through the Rose Wood and emerge on the east side of the school by the Ivy dormitory, which she would stake out until she caught the princess alone. The ease of it was laughable; it was practically an invitation. But what she hadn’t been anticipating was the strangeness of the woodland. It rippled as she approached it, a distinct cut-off point between the dense forest and the rest of the world where the trees became dense and dark, and the ground beneath them cold. Ingrid stood at the rim of the shadows, age-old oaks towering over her, sunlight and shadows in crisscross patterns across her legs. She spat on the ground like a cat coughing up a hairball. She wasn’t sure why she did it, but she smiled down before continuing on into the woods.
The second she was under the cover of the trees, a great chill wrapped around her. Only seconds ago she’d been too hot in her black catsuit and backpack, and now she was cold—and not just cold, freezing. It was as if the Rose Wood existed in an entirely different climate. Deeper in, pockets of sunlight provided moments of warmth, but it didn’t stop the goose bumps from building on her flesh. She hissed in irritation, continuing on and catching her foot in a bramble, thorns biting her legs.
The hands of the Rose Wood were gripping her tight, holding her back. With a furious shriek, she reached for her knife and in one great strike that sent a million volts of pain up her arm she cut into the brambles, slicing them clean off her.
“Overgrown pit,” she snarled, swinging her blade again, grinning as she tore another scar in the woodland. With each swipe of the blade, a fresh ache of pain blossomed from her wrist, a glorious bruise that she cherished—proof that she deserved what she was going to take.
After fifteen minutes, her breathing turned heavy, thrilled by the damage she was causing. It wasn’t until she reached a large clearing that she stopped to look at herself. Thorns had torn her catsuit, and welts and red lines of blood flared up along her skin. The woodland had bitten and scratched her with every step she took. Ingrid imagined how she must
