“Not my mom,” I say.

“Not the tietäjät,” Sini adds. “A tietäjä would never hurt anyone. This is the work of a chaos mage.”

“Oh please. They don’t exist anymore except in stories to scare little kids.” Ekaterina rolls her eyes so hard I’m amazed they stay in her head.

“Tell that to the six battle mages defeated at the Svalbard vault.” My words leave the others in stunned silence.

Aysha’s lights flicker as she blinks. “That can’t be true.”

“My dad was investigating it. And you saw that book in Joakim’s room.”

“If chaos mages can take down battle mages, then what good is a tietäjä anyway?” Ekaterina’s fingers spark blue and white where she clutches her pendant.

“Better than just us, that’s for sure,” Sini says.

Morgan remains quiet, rubbing at his wrists. It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but the skin around his tattoos looks red and raw.

“Fine,” Aysha says. “Taika, talk to your mom if you can without telling her about all this, and see if you can find out which stones Natalie was taken to. We’ll see what we can find out about MacCrone and the other teachers with tattoos.”

“Students too,” Ekaterina adds, giving Morgan a weird look.

“Meet us at Pilvitalo tomorrow after breakfast,” Aysha says.

I do not like the way Aysha is taking charge. It was better when only Morgan and I were doing the investigating. Whether I like it or not though, we’re going to need all the help we can get if we want to save Natalie and the others.

“We need to be careful,” Morgan says.

“Obviously, druid.” Ekaterina sneers as she gets to her feet and dusts off her jeans.

“These are ruined!” Aysha fingers the dark splotches across her butt.

“Oh, dear gods,” Sini says, the snap of her bracelet accompanying every word. She points up to where Aysha’s orbs illuminate the trees.

I suck in a breath and Morgan visibly pales.

“Did we do this?” Aysha asks.

“I did.” Morgan jams his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched, and mouth corkscrewed in a grimace.

I turn in a circle, surveying the damage our spell has caused. All around the clearing, the trees are gnarled, and any remaining leaves have turned black. It’s dead and we killed it. The ground beneath our feet is littered with branches that crumble to ash at the gentlest nudge of a toe.

“I drew too much and killed the whole damn forest.” Morgan looks like he might be sick.

“Hardly,” Aysha says. “You killed a few pines.”

“Birch, actually.” I seriously can’t stop myself.

“It’s not the end of the world.” Aysha glares at me.