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“Bah!” he cries out before he looks at me, pointing his finger. “You! You erased my memory!”
“I had to. It would have caused you too much grief otherwise,” I tell him.
“But your erasure of my memory led to a different path of grief!”
“I couldn’t foresee that. I did what I could,” I try to explain. “I did what I thought was best for everyone.”
“Papa,” Hanna says to him gently. “It’s okay. What’s done is done. Now you remember. Now you know the truth about everything and everyone.”
“Oh God,” he says, his head in his hands. “I am so confused. This is too much for my old brain.”
“Tell us what happened since you came back,” I say to him.
He looks up at me and opens his mouth to say something, only to snap it shut for a moment. “Wait,” he eventually says, a look of horror slowly coming across his brow. “Wait a minute.When you first got here, Hanna, you said he was your husband. That’s not true. That was a lie, a role, wasn’t it? Please tell me it was.”
I exchange a wince with Hanna, which makes her father gasp.
“No,” he cries out. “No, you didn’tmarryhim.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, biting back a grin. “But you are, in fact, my father-in-law now.”
He’s about to spring to his feet again, but Hanna keeps him down.
“We didn’t get married under the best terms,” she tells him. “And it wasn’t always easy, but it’s much easier now.”
His nose wrinkles. “I don’t understand. How can you call marriage to the God of Death easy?”
“I don’t know,” she says, and something cold and calculating gleams in her eyes. “I mean, marriage is hard, isn’t it? Sure, I was forced into marriage with Tuoni, but at least it was honest. At least there were no lies between us.” She pauses, and I can tell she’s going in for the kill. “At least Tuoni is a good husband, not one who goes off and impregnates both a demonandthe goddess of the sun.”
If I thought I felt sorry for Torben earlier, Ireallyfeel for him now. Granted, this is his mess that he created, and it’s a big fucking mess when you consider what both of those offspring are doing right now in the Underworld. Still, it must be hard to realize you’ve fucked up that badly.
“What…what are you…” he begins.
“There is no point pretending with her, Torben,” I warn him. “She’s smart, and she’s rightfully upset by your hypocrisy, as am I.”
“You?” he cries out. “Why should you be upset? None of this concerns you.”
I laugh, the sound dry and mirthless. “Oh, but that’s where you’re so very wrong. You see, it was because of your careless indiscretions that the two of us are here to begin with. We aren’t in your world by choice. We stumbled here trying to find a way out of Inmost, because your dark magic daughter, the one you created and discarded with the help of my ex-wife, whom you know intimately, and your bastard, red-headed son, decided that now was a good a time as any to try and kill the both of us and raise the Old Gods.”
Torben’s brows go up to the ceiling, his fingers curling around the arms of his chair. “What?” He looks to Hanna, shaking his head. “I don’t…”
“What are you denying?” Hanna asks. “The bastard, or the abandoned magic baby?”
He swallows, looking pained. “The bastard.”
She looks over at me. I nod, giving her the floor. Since he doesn’t know, he should hear it from his daughter.
“Rasmus,” Hanna says to him. “Your son is Rasmus.”
He blinks in shock. “No. He can’t be.”
“I’m sure if you look deep inside, you’ll know it’s true,” she says gently. “Perhaps you’ve always suspected in some way, in your heart.”
“But…how?”
I sigh and lean forward with my elbows on my thighs. “You’re asking how? Allow me to explain to you how a particularly demonic woman can be especially good at seduction.” Hanna stiffens at that, and I wink at her. “Fear not, fairy girl, I’m not singing her praises. Her demon ways also allow her to be adept with magic. Some magic is irresistible to a Shaman. Isn’t that why you often came to Tuonela, Torben? For the magic? Well, Louhi worked her magic on you.”
Fear passes over his face, distorting his features. “No.”
