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“We need a sunmoonstone,” I say, looking around the darkness.
“Where did you learn about those?” Death asks suspiciously.
“Rasmus,” I say, though I feel like saying his name is risky territory now. “He had a few.” I pause. “The mushroom place was dark, too.”
He mutters something under his breath then goes still for a moment before waving the key in the air.
Suddenly scones are lit one-by-one down the long hall, illuminating narrow walls the same shiny black as the steps outside.
“How did you do that?” I ask. “You have ghosts powering the lights in here too?” I think back to what he said about how he lights the Library of the Veils.
“No ghosts here,” he says. “Just magic.”
He tucks his key beneath his shirt, the collar open enough for me to get a glimpse of his chest and the silver lines cutting across his tanned skin. The lines glow for a moment before fading.
“Someone just died, didn’t they?” I ask.
“Someone is always dying,” he says wearily. Then he sighs, and lifts his mask off his face, cradling it in his hands, his attention down the hall. “Come on, we might as well rest if Sarvi is.”
I follow him down the hall, his heavy boots echoing, passing by small dark shapes that move along the walls. I peer at them curiously, realizing they’re actually snails the size of my fist, but instead of a shell for a back, they carry the small skulls of some unknown creatures.
“I think you have a snail problem,” I tell Death as we near the end of the hall.
“Skull snails,” he says. “They’re useful to have around. They suck up pests and bad energy.” He pauses. “They’re also poisonous, so don’t touch them.”
Of course they are.
We come into a square room. There is a large fireplace with two chairs in front covered with layers of pelts and fur, and an iron table between them. Two doorways are on opposite sides of the room, the doors closed. There’s nothing else here.
“Is this it?”
“Not up to your standards, is it?” he comments.
“I just spent the night underground with fungus,” I remind him. “I don’t think this place is up to your standards. You don’t exactly like roughing it.”
He grumbles at that and places his mask on the table. “Sit down.”
I exhale and sit down on the unknown animal furs. At least the chair is comfortable.
“This is the receiving room,” he says as he eases his big frame down across from me, making the chair look tiny. “If I ever had visitors here—or intruders—this is as far as they would get. The rest of it is further back into the mountain. There are even passages that lead from here to the City of Death, though it would take days in the dark to get there.”
“Will you take me to the city one day?” I ask. “Before the shit hit the fan, you said you were going to put on a Bone Match.”
He watches me for a moment with careful precision. It’s like being observed by a giant panther. Then he leans further back in his chair, his eyes gleaming, and taps his metal fingers against the end of the chair arms.
“Hanna,” he says patiently. “You have to understand that I don’t trust you. However you thought things were going to go before, they aren’t going to go that way now. I don’t know what you went through from the moment you left Shadow’s End. Who you saw, who you talked to. What you told them.”
“I didn’t tell anyone anything,” I protest. “Rasmus came on Alku, he took me—”
“You went willingly,” he says sharply.
“Yes. I went willingly. He said he was going to bring me to my father in the Upper World, my father who is there alone, with no protection against Eero and Noora. With his memory wiped, he won’t even know that they were trying to kill me. Can’t you see why I wanted to get back?”
He wiggles his jaw slowly. “And you believed him.”
“I had to believe him. And you know what, I still do. Despite him being Louhi’s son, I don’t think he ever meant to put me in harm’s way. He wanted me out of this world.” I pause. “He’s my brother.”
Death stares blankly at me for a moment. “Your brother?” he finally says.
“Louhi and my father…” I start, unable to shake the disgust. “I don’t know how it’s even possible. But you mentioned that she can shapeshift and perhaps she tricked him. This could have been quite some time before he met my mother. I’m sure she never even knew that my father had another child.”
Or…maybe she did.
“Fucking Torben,” Death says quietly, staring at the wall, shaking his head slightly. “All this time he had me fooled that he was some hapless old shaman when he’d been screwing my ex-wife.” He looks back to me, brow furrowed. “Are you sure he’s Rasmus’ father and not Ilmarinen?”
