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“Having cake for a meal is very Finnish,” I tell him as I walk over to the counter, picking up a tray. “Besides, you get to have the best coffee this way.”
Once we both decide on our cakes—chocolate for him, vanilla for me—we get two coffees, pay for it all at the register, and find a table. Naturally, everyone in the café looks over at Tuoni with interest, but they quickly look away and go back to eating in relative silence.
Both of us were hungrier than we thought, and thirsty too, so after we’re done with the cakes, we grab a couple ofpullabuns and get drinks to go—another coffee for him, while I get a hot chocolate with fat, pastel pink and green marshmallows.
“Amaranthus,” Tuoni says again for the umpteenth time as we leave the café and step out into the dark city street. “Who knew coffee could taste so good?”
“Hey, the coffee you have at Shadow’s End ain’t half bad,” I say, pulling out my phone with my free hand to look at the map and make sure we’re walking in the right direction toward my uncle’s apartment.
“Nah,” he says with a sniff. “It’s not the same. Something must happen when I have it smuggled through, or maybe my scouts aren’t going to the right spots.”
“Where do your scouts go?” I ask as we wait at a stoplight. I hold my arm across Tuoni’s chest so he knows not to walk out in the middle of traffic again. “They aren’t spat out in the Finnish wilderness, are they?”
He chuckles. “No. There is a portal underneath Shadow’s End en route to the Crystal Caves. I’ve never dared to slip through myself, but I believe it takes the person directly to France.”
“Ah,” I say, walking as the hand flashes for us to cross. “That’s probably where your daughter leaves from. She’s talked about Paris a few times with me. Maybe she should be your scout going forward. That way, she can bring you back the best coffee,andshe gets to go on her little adventures.”
He grunts at that, but instead of looking annoyed at the idea of Lovia coming into the world and shirking her duties, he looks wistful. I can tell he’s thinking about her, about Tuonen, missing them, worrying for them. I don’t want to bring it to his attention, though, because he’s apt to feel self-conscious.
“Here I was thinking the portal was hidden,” he says, taking a sip of his coffee as we walk. “But I’ve underestimated Lovia too many times.”
“So, when we get back, maybe Tapio’s son really should be the one taking over their duties.”
He glances at me with a solemn look. “When we get back, my children can have whatever the damn hell they want. I don’t want to be a father who denies them anything anymore, especially not their happiness. I don’t know what kind of world we’re going to walk back in to, but it’s not one where I have no faults. Things will change, in many ways, and for the better, when all is said and done.”
“When all is said and done,” I agree, tapping my cup against his.
We head toward my uncle’s apartment, walking down a fir-tree lined path, Christmas lights still up on the branches. With the hot drinks in our hands and the snow gently falling around us, gathering on Tuoni’s furs, the whole place looks absolutely magical.
Our boots crunch pleasingly in the snow as we carefully make our way up a slight hill, stopping in front of what should be my uncle’s place, a four-story yellow building on Fabianinkatu.
“This must be it,” I say, looking at the apartment directory for his name. My finger hovers on the button as I look at Tuoni. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”
He arches a dark brow. “Do you?”
“I’m going to wing it,” I say, pressing the buzzer.
Death scoffs under his breath. “Why am I not surprised?”
The buzzer rings and then crackles, and a man’s voice comes through.
“Mitä?” he asks.
“Hi,” I say in English before Tuoni leans in and says something quickly in Finnish that I don’t catch.
Suddenly, the buzzer goes click, and the door opens.
“What did you say to him?” I ask incredulously as we step inside the building’s dim foyer.
“I said I was his god and needed to speak with him immediately,” he says, looking around. “What floor does this relative live on?”
I’m about to say the second floor when suddenly, a balding man with glasses and a kind face I recognize as my uncle pokes his head over the side of the staircase railing.
He says something in Finnish and waves at us to come up the stairs.
I’m still marveling at the fact that Tuoni was able to magic him through the intercom, and when we get to my uncle’s side, I can see his eyes are glazed. He glances at me, but I can tell he doesn’t really seeme.
I’m tempted to say, “Hey Uncle Osmo, it’s me Hanna, guess what, I’m not dead, I’m not a ghost, I didn’t join a cult, I’m actually fine, long story”, or however it would have turned out if I had winged it. But whatever Tuoni has done to him, he doesn’treally see me for me, and anyway, when was the last time I physically saw my uncle? I would have been a child. I don’t think he’d recognize me even if Tuoni didn’t have him entranced.
