Girl of Iron and Magic

23.

23.

9 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

Lotte followed Mr. Henri into the house.

"Did you see the coroner?" Mrs. Treebald asked the moment he was through the door, but he said nothing, as if he couldn't hear her.

"Is it her?" Mrs. Treebald continued to ask.

"Do they know what she is? Did they say anything? Henri..."

Like a sleepwalker, he went into his study and sat behind his desk, staring ahead into space. Mrs. Treebald let him go and have privacy.

Only Lotte was with him, but he didn't know she was.

It didn't take long for him to think about Lotte and begin crying again.

Lotte had heard the word 'grief' before, but she didn't know what it looked like. She felt wretched. Would she have been this way if Mr. Henri died?

She somehow didn't think so. It made her feel terribly cold.

Mr. Henri suddenly paused. He reached down and pulled up Lotte's tear that had fallen into the fold caused by the flap over his jacket pocket.

He stared at the glinting red gemstone. "What...?"

He could see her tears.

Lotte dumped a handful of tears onto his desk. They hit it with dozens of little clatters, spreading over the dark mahogany surface, red stars against a brown sky.

"Sera!" Mr Henri cried, jumping to his feet. "Sera come see this!"

Mrs. Treebald ran inside. "Henri, what is it?"

She stopped when she saw the gems on Mr Henri's desk. There were so many, Lotte had done a lot of crying.

"Nine gods, are those..." She picked one of to examine it. "Rubies?"

"They're tears," Mr. Henri said, voice cracking. "Poppin's tears."

Mrs. Treebald instantly threw aside the tear she held, face twisting in horror and disgust. "Her tears? Where did they come from?"

But Mr. Henri wasn't listening. He was crying again, hand to his chest. "My Poppin... My little Poppy..."

Lotte began to arrange the tears on the desk into words.

"Henri," Mrs. Treebald said. "Henri..."

"I'm sorry Poppy...I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you."

"Henri!" Mrs. Treebald cried. "Look!"

Mr. Henri looked.

I'M ALIVE, Lotte had written in red tears on his desk.

Mr. Henri gaped, they both did, as she scrambled the word ALIVE.

I'M HERE, she wrote.

***
PRESENT DAY

Why didn't Poe tell her? After all the things he said about keeping balance within her own body, why didn't he tell her about the seal?

In the end, all she had ever been to him was a casual fancy. An interesting project to be forgotten about when things were no longer convenient for him. More than leaving the home she always knew, what hurt most was the fact that she'd never see him again and he didn't care.

Did he know that she'd probably be dead even before reaching Serades?

Blue had insisted that he didn't really know what would happen once the seal vanished. He told her that he didn't know which part of her was sealed away. He told her, hopefully, that there was a chance he was wrong.