I gulp down some air, hoping it’ll help me squash the fear bubbling up my throat. I’m the descendant of Väinämöinen! The blood of Mervi the Magnificent runs through my veins, the blood of the tietäjä who saved everyone from the chaos of Tumultua. Mervi certainly wouldn’t have been afraid of some shadows in a cottage, and neither am I.

But she had magic, the little voice pipes up, making me grit my teeth. I thought it had gone for good, but I guess not. Well, I might not have magic, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have courage.

Despite the warning ruckus from my crows, I’m the first to step into MacCrone’s cottage.

Feeling along the wall, my hand finds a switch and I flick it, lighting up the carnage. The cottage is in a worse state than the office was. Broken furniture lies scattered in splinters around the tiny living room. Smears of dark red decorate the walls where pictures hang askew. Some have been knocked down altogether, and glass crunches under my boots.

“Holy crap, is that blood?” Aysha clings to me as we survey the destruction.

I want to lie and say it’s just smashed berries, but my words are stuck behind my teeth. Judging by the splatter from wall to ceiling, someone must be badly injured.

“Look at the claw marks.” Katya points at deep gouges along the floor and walls. Did Fiona do that or something else? There are far worse things than a maahinen lurking in the in-between spaces, ready to be summoned.

“It’s so cold in here.” Aysha rubs her arms through her jacket and stamps her feet.

“Is that snow?” Katya nods at a pile of white gathering at the far end of the living room.

Slowly, we pick our way through the wreckage. A cold wind whistles through the cottage, tossing flakes into our faces. Snow—tons of it—lies in a spreading puddle across the living room carpet, with more billowing in from the bedroom.

We stop, our shoes already dusted white. There’s a hole in the wall, a haphazard oval, its edges frayed and scorched by whatever magic carved it. The sigils seared into the wallpaper aren’t any I know, but they look familiar, like the ones in Toivo’s room. Battle magic, or chaos magic then.

The bed has been upended, a snarl of sheets and broken bits in the corner. Several frayed pieces of wool and fluff are snagged on the springs. Wool the same sunshine yellow as Fiona’s sweater, and fluff like the fur of the maahinen.

I take careful steps through the wall into the forest beyond, but where there should be leaves and shrubs, only the twisted remains of dead plants and ash remain.

“It’s like when we did the summoning, only worse,” Aysha says, her voice catching. “Look at the trees!”