Princess at Heart (The Rosewood Chronicles)

When you live by the sea, you can smell summer storms brewing. The tide sucks in the water, whispering out a salty sigh that churns up the scent of approaching rain.

When Ollie was young, he’d been scared of the storms. It was his best friend, Lottie, who’d taught him they were nothing to be afraid of. She’d recount the tale of the Little Mermaid and how her journey had begun with a wild and courageous storm, so ferocious it had sunk a ship.

What Lottie failed to mention was that the mermaid’s destiny was to turn into a pile of sea foam. Once Ollie discovered that, the fear stuck with him like a scar. Even now that he was sixteen, the distant rumble of thunder sent a tremor of fright skittering across his skin. Lottie loved the storm because she said it was the start of something new – because no matter how violent the raging winds and rain, no matter how loud the thunder, a storm meant the tension would be released, that the earth would be fresh and cool once more.

But for Ollie a storm meant only trouble.

Summer had come and gone in the blink of an eye. It was time for Ollie to head back to school, and a storm was rolling over the horizon. The humid weather was building to breaking point. His shirts clung to his skin with sweat, and he could never get the sticky feeling off his fingers no matter how much he showered. His mother, Manuela Moreno, however, seemed unaffected, cooped up in her oven of a studio or cooking her spicy dishes in the stuffy kitchen. The idea of being back at school, away from this unbearable heat, actually felt good. More than anything, he needed a distraction.

‘Ollie?’ His mother’s voice pierced his bedroom. ‘Hurry up, or you won’t have time for breakfast. I’m not letting you start back at school on an empty stomach.’

‘Coming, Mamãe!’

Another white-hot flash lit up the blue walls of his bedroom, startling him as he reached for his backpack.

A lot had happened over the summer, most of which he’d had to be updated on by Binah. Ever since Lottie had started at her new school, the mysterious and prestigious Rosewood Hall, his comfortable little world had been turned completely upside down. Despite his disapproval, Lottie had taken a job as a Portman for the royal family of Maradova, pretending to be Princess Eleanor Wolfson. This allowed the real princess to live a ‘normal’ life. Having met the real princess, Ollie could see why she preferred to remain undercover. Ellie Wolf, the name she preferred to go by, was a thunderstorm in human form. Nothing about her screamed ‘princess’. She was all dark eyes and moody stares. The confident way she moved, the lazy way she laughed. She was just like the storms he’d been afraid of as a child, the very same storms that Lottie adored.

And that was just the princess. Even worse was her Partizan, Jamie: a bodyguard who looked as though he’d never smiled in his entire life. Ollie still remembered him leaning against the door frame in the kitchen, as still and patient as death, and equally as foreboding.

Lottie had been thrust into their world of royal conspiracies and secret evil societies, and now Ollie had been dragged in too, everyone banding together to try to find the identity of the Master of Leviathan, a strange and menacing group whose only goal was to destroy the Maravish royal family.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Ollie drifted into a daze, shovelling pancakes into his mouth like an unthinking machine. He didn’t even taste the maple syrup. He swallowed down a mouthful and it stuck in his throat, choking him. He rubbed his chest frantically.

‘Chew your food, Ollie,’ his mother scolded, placing a reusable water bottle in his backpack.

He nodded absent-mindedly, thoughts turning back to the summer and the terrible secrets that had been revealed.

He and a group of Rosewood students had sneaked into Rosewood Hall. They’d ventured beyond the walls into the sleeping school to steal an ancient diary that had belonged to the founder. Reading it, Ollie had discovered that the school’s founder was Lottie’s ancestor – a long-lost Ottoman princess, Liliana Mayfutt.

Of course, being related to lost royalty would never be enough for Lottie. There was more. The second layer of secrets they had discovered was a set of twin swords, one buried at Rosewood and one at its sister school in Japan, Takeshin. The swords had their own secret – that an age-old and powerful bond between the two school founders stretched back to when Liliana had hidden away in Japan after escaping from the palace in the seventeenth century. After that she’d ventured to England and founded the school there.

But the icing on the secret cake was the most terrifying news Ollie had ever received. With the help of some students at Takeshin, he and his friends had discovered that Leviathan, the mysterious group who’d targeted his best friend ever since she’d started her new life, was led by Claude Wolfson, Ellie’s uncle. Wolfson had abandoned the throne, then he’d been exiled from Maradova and his younger brother Alexander forced to take on the role of king. None of them knew Claude’s ultimate plan, but Ollie knew one thing with absolute certainty – Lottie was at the very heart of the intrigue, and there was nothing he could do to save her. Not yet.

He shook himself from his thoughts. ‘I’ll head off before it starts raining.’ He kissed his mother on the cheek, grabbing his backpack and one last pancake before heading out of the front door.

A familiar red van pulled up. ‘Good morning, Ollie. Glad I caught you,’ said a voice.

Ollie smiled at the postman. ‘Good morning, Mr Harris.’

‘I’ve picked up a postcard for the Pumpkin household,’ the postman said, his sunburnt cheeks turning round and friendly. ‘No one’s been there for a while, so I thought I’d bring it over to you. You were always good friends with that Lottie girl.’

A menacing rumble of thunder disrupted the air. It rolled over Ollie like a premonition of trouble arriving. Something Ollie had come to realize over the past year was that trouble always sought Lottie out – just like the thunderstorm. A myriad of awful possibilities exploded in his head: news reporters who’d figured out her Portman secret, a threat from Leviathan, news that her stepmother was coming home. The letter could be about any one of these.

Mr Harris pulled out a postcard with a picture of a white-sand beach. Lemon-yellow lettering read: Havana. Ollie could practically smell the rum and cheap aftershave wafting off it. There was only one person who’d send a postcard like this. It conjured an image that was far, far worse than any of the possibilities he’d already thought of.

He took the card, trying to be as calm as possible. ‘Thank you. I’ll be sure to pass it on to her.’

‘Say hello to your mother for me, Ollie,’ replied Mr Harris as he headed back to his van.

The world swirled. Ollie knew he shouldn’t turn over the postcard, that he shouldn’t read it. Whatever was on the other side could only be bad news. But Lottie had to know what was coming, surely? With a gulp, Ollie flipped it over. The writing was smudged, probably done in a hurry, but the words were clear, as was all the trouble they would bring.

To my little princess, Charlotte,

It’s been far too long, and Beady tells me you’re working your way into high society.

She has also brought it to my attention that you have not been living in the old house, so I hope you will understand that it’s become necessary to sell it.

Much love,

Your father

Ollie looked up to see Mr Harris’s van disappear out of sight, and with it any chance of returning the cursed postcard. He could only hope Lottie would be able to handle the bad news.