“We?” Mom raises her eyebrows and straightens her shoulders, sliding back into principal mode. “Your father is out there right now looking for Toivo and the O’Connors. You have done quite enough.”

“We were trying to find Natalie and Hannah.” I slump, defeated, my elbows on the table and my head in my hands. I’ve made a mess of this.

“I understand you’re trying to help,” Mom says. “But this is serious, Taika. This isn’t something you and your friends can be involved in. And it certainly isn’t something we needed splashed all over the Messenger.”

“That wasn’t my decision. I didn’t ask Cludd to print it. That wasn’t my fault.” But I knew it could happen and for a moment when I heard it had, I was secretly happy that something I’d written had finally caught everyone’s attention. “What happens if the tietäjä gets all the shards of the Sampo? Is the story about Tumultua true?” I ask instead.

“What do you know about Tumultua?” Mom meets my gaze.

There’s anger in the tight press of her lips and the frown scrunching up her forehead, but in her eyes there’s fear, which makes the sandwiches turn to concrete in my stomach. If one of the best tietäjät in the country is afraid, I guess I should be petrified.

“Only what Toivo read in the battle mage handbook. Did she really survive the Chaos Wars?” I ask.

Mom nods. “Tumultua was young then, a novice practitioner only. The battle mages spared her in an act of mercy. They thought there was hope for her, that she’d join their side and turn away from chaos.”

“But she didn’t.”

“She did, or so it seemed. She became a battle mage, the best they’d ever seen. Then strange deaths started occurring. A few a year, then more. Battle mages were inexplicably dying without any known cause.”

“Was Tumultua sucking the magic out of them?” I ask, trying not to think about how Morgan sucked the energy out of me.

“My word, I really do underestimate you, don’t I?” For a moment, Mom looks impressed before her forehead creases with concern again. “Yes, Tumultua was draining other mages of their magic. It was how she managed to live so long, feeding off the energy of others. She’d already become immensely powerful. Far more powerful than one person has any right to be. Thankfully, there were enough battle mages left to fight her.”

“That’s when they imprisoned her?”

“Many wanted her drained of power,” Mom says. “Or executed, which would’ve been the more merciful option according to some.”

“Because a life without magic is worse than death?” My voice wobbles and there’s a pain stabbing between my ribs like a stitch, only so much worse.