Girl of Iron and Magic

31.

31.

8 YEARS BEFORE THE WAR

One of the things that Poe did, which was very different from what Lotte was used to, was to take her once a week to the factory district where the air was foul and heavy with fumes. There, in a deserted lot overgrown with weeds that had the rusty skeletons of old cars and other rubbish, Lotte would play with other Lotte children.

She didn't know how Poe knew about this place. Some of the Lotte were very small, while others were in their teens. They all met there, every single day, as if in secret.

None of them were like Lotte. They all had deeply brown skin that seemed almost black, and coiled hair. They were warm and welcoming people, always emitting a bright, comforting cheerfulness. They played ordinary games—even the dreaded hopscotch—but Lotte stopped shivering at the sight of the chalk chart after the first few times. None of them had an elven parent with them. The parents—if there were any—were human.

Perhaps it was then that it began. It was then that Lotte suspected that Poe was her parent. Her father. She didn't understand why he kept it from her. He could just tell him. She'd forgive him for leaving her at the orphanage. She'd forgive him for letting her live on the street. She'd forgive him for the first eight years of her life, as long as she could trust him to be there for the rest.

A year passed. Lotte learned a lot. Mr. Henri started coming less and less throughout that year. His visits became a monthly occurrence, then every other month, and then the year was gone.

And he no longer came.

Lotte told herself that she didn't mind. She had troubled Mr. Henri enough. But now she was troubled. What was she supposed to feel when she loved someone and they forgot about her? Of course, Mr. Henri hadn't forgotten. He promised he wouldn't. She just had to learn to expect less.

Besides, she was very busy. Poe kept her busy from morning till evening. He gave her a lot of heavy books to read and together they practiced enchantments. He didn't want her only to study magic. In fact, he taught her very little about what elves were actually like. He wanted her to study humans, their history, literature and art.

He himself was acting as a type of scholar for the elves. That was why he could stay there, in Raidox.
Except for one day a year.

"I have to drink from the waters of the Hallerdin," he said. "And show myself to the Talmil."

So, Lotte was left alone one day when she was eight, and one day when she was nine. Poe told her not to leave the flat on her own on those days and to not let anyone in. He looked wretched with worry when he left, and when he returned late in the night, he'd rush into her room and wake her up with a sigh of relief.

But, if he was so concerned for her now, why had he let her live the way she had when she was much smaller? He had made it clear that he knew her since she was a baby—so what had happened?

It took Lotte two years to reach the point where she dared to ask him.
"Are you my..." She didn't know the word for father in elvish. So she said it in human. "Are you my father?" They had been studying. The question came out of nowhere.

Poe looked at her long and hard and then sighed. "No, sulsylnan."

She sat very still and didn't say anything.

"I wish I were," he said. "But if I were your papu, you wouldn't be..." He put his hand over her hand. "You."

Then he pulled away quickly. It was the first time Lotte saw Poe look genuinely uncomfortable. "We would have been spared a lot of pain, you and I. But these are fruitless thoughts."