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“Yes,” I tell him emphatically. “Rasmus is your son. Louhi gave birth to him thirty years ago and had him deposited in this world. And because the Creator and the Fates have a sense of humor, you took a baby created with shadow magic and deposited it in my world. Speaking father to father, you’re not doing that great of a job at it, are you?”
“And what of you?” he scowls at me. “You think you’re coming across as someone worthy of respect? Someone with morals? You kidnapped me.”
“You were trespassing,” I tell him sharply. “And perhaps I should have kidnapped you a long time ago, if not to teach you a lesson so you wouldn’t mess with the gods like you have.”
“You’re a monster,” he sneers.
“I am what I am,” I counter. “Sometimes, I am a monster. Sometimes, I’m a father, a god, a king…a husband. Sometimes, I am just trying to do the right thing, and that’s why we’re here. Because I need to do the right thing, or else the entire world will be in jeopardy.”
“And that’s why we need your help,” Hanna says to him. “Papa, I know you have your misgivings about what happened between you and Tuoni, with me and Tuoni, but we have to put that aside for now. We need you to take us to the portal, the one by the resort, the way I got in. We need to get back home.”
He stares at her for a moment, heartbreak in his eyes. “Butthisis your home, Hanna.”
She gives him a sad smile. “It will always be my home.Youwill always be my home. But I have two homes now.” She pauses. “And both of them are at risk. If we don’t get back there to defeat Louhi and the Old Gods, then every living being will suffer in death. We can’t let that happen, no matter what. Besides, the gods and creatures in Tuonela are at risk too. What happens if they’re all sent to Oblivion?”
He shrugs. “I really couldn’t care.”
“You’d say that even about my own mother?”
Ah. She’s got him there. He goes still, swallowing audibly.
“So you know about her,” he says quietly, looking over at the fire. “I guess you would have if you had learned about the other baby. Have you met Päivätär yet?”
“Not yet, and I would like to before the Old Gods decide she needs replacing.”
He sighs and runs his hands over his face. Now I really feel sorry for him. He’s fucked up in so many different ways, with so many different knots, it’s hard to know which one we need to untangle first.
“Alright,” he says carefully, his voice sounding broken. “Alright then. We leave tomorrow morning. We will need our sleep tonight.” He looks up and eyes me, then Hanna. “I’ll bring you to the portal, but I must warn you, it will be dangerous.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because of the reason I’m in hiding,” he says with a wince. “Because I’ll finally be in the open. Because there are people who want to kill me—and they’ll have no problem killing you too.”
Chapter 20
Hanna
The North
It will come as no surprise, but I barely slept a wink. Not only was there too much to think about, but my father’s cabin isn’t exactly built for size, nor privacy. I took the single bed upstairs in the loft, but because of Tuoni’s frame (and the fact that he would probably crush the ladder), he took my father’s bed, and my father begrudgingly took the couch that was too small for my husband to stretch out on anyway.
Unfortunately, my father snores like an old engine, and even the earplugs that came in the hotel’s vanity kit didn’t block it.
But eventually, the morning rolled around. We got up with the dawn and had coffee and more cardamom buns, packed up my father’s SUV (leaving the keys in my uncle’s car for when and if he comes to get it, plus a wad of euros for his trouble), and left the cabin.
In the morning light, things seem a little brighter, the land up north not so isolated or threatening as it seemed yesterday. Still, it doesn’t take long for the conversation to take a dark turn.
“I need an army,” Tuoni says from the back seat.
I stop trying to find a radio station and look back at him. “What do you mean?”
“We need an army to stop Louhi. She’ll be taking over mine if she hasn’t already. The Old Gods, the Bone Stragglers—my army will be corrupted in no time. They have loyalty to me in spades, but if they think Louhi is me, their king, they’ll do whatever she says. They will usher inKaaos.”
My father eyes him in the rearview mirror. “Surely you have your family of gods.”
“I hope,” he says stiffly. “But there are only so many of us, and there are more Old Gods. We could defeat the armies, perhaps, but against the Old Gods, I am unsure. The magic used to resurrect them might be enough to protect them from being killed, and if there is a way, I don’t know if there are enough of us to be a threat. Vellamo and Ahto are formidable, but I have never seen Kuutar or Hanna’s mother express any interest in what happens below the sky, and my sister Ilmatar is as useless as a wet blanket. Tapio seems gentle, but I know the man can fight. But his children? Even my children? Do they have what it takes?”
I’m about to remind him that Lovia is a great fighter, but then again, I did kick her off her own riverboat. I decide not to bring that up.
