The others gather close, expressions all reflecting the same fear.

“Is he dead?” Ekaterina asks, and Sini stifles a sob.

“Come on, wake up. Please.”

His hands are freezing, and I take them between my own, rubbing them as if that’ll somehow jump-start his heart. My fingers brush the tattoos on his wrists, and I feel a jolt through my hands, like the static shocks you get in winter, only this is bone deep and a lot more painful.

Morgan blinks awake and struggles to sit up. He draws his knees to his chest with a groan and rests his face in his hands.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Remind me not to do that ever again.” He tugs at the curls escaped from his beanie, then looks up at me, his eyes no longer glowing with magic. “Really. I came so close to crossing the line.” He shakes his head and straightens up a bit. “I’m sorry, Tai. I shouldn’t have done that. Did it even work?”

“I spoke to the liekkiö. I spoke to Natalie.”

Sini doesn’t manage to stifle the sob this time as she crumples into Aysha’s arms.

“But she’s alive, right?” Ekaterina grips the pendant around her neck again.

“For now. She’s running out of time though. The others too. I think I know where she was taken.” I tell them everything Natalie said—minus the bit about the kiss. I fold up that memory and tuck it into a pocket for later contemplation.

“How come you’re the only one who heard or saw anything?” Ekaterina asks. “You don’t even have magic.”

“Which is why they were the only one not passed out,” Morgan says. “Are we really going to argue about this when we could be coming up with a plan to help?”

“We should tell our parents,” Sini says. “They’ll know what to do.”

“Like mine would even care.” Ekaterina’s voice is all metal spikes and snarl.

“I already tried talking to my mom,” I say. “It did not go well.”

“But we summoned a liekkiö. The school has to believe us now,” Aysha says. “Especially if Morgan’s the one who tells them.”

“You overestimate how much teachers like me,” he says.

“The tietäjät will help. They have to!” Sini says. “We’ll just tell them—”

“What, exactly?” Ekaterina interjects. “‘Hey, Mrs. Turunen, I broke every rule doing this summoning spell and chatted to a liekkiö of my nearly dead friend.’ How do you think she’ll deal with that? I know we don’t all share the feeling, but I, for one, like being at this school. I do not want to get expelled, thanks.”

Ekaterina’s right. There’s no way we can tell my mom about the spell, not without getting everyone into serious trouble.

“Besides,” Aysha says, “we don’t know who took Natalie—or why—or who else might be involved.”