“Whatever you and that O’Connor kid are up to, best you stop,” he says. It’s not anger in his voice this time, it’s fear. “Seriously, I don’t think you realize how dangerous this all is.”

“At least I know better than to mess around with chaos magic,” I snap back.

Toivo reels away from me as if I slapped him. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.” Maybe I said too much, but it feels good to see him being the one to flinch for a change. Except, I should be careful. For all I know, Toivo could be involved. He might not have tattoos, but that doesn’t mean whoever attacked Natalie didn’t have help from others.

“Is the break-in on Svalbard connected to Natalie?” I ask instead. “Whoever broke in wanted the Sampo, right? But they didn’t get it—so they started kidnapping kids?” Saying it out loud doesn’t make it sound any more logical than when it was all jumbled together in my head. “Come on, you have to tell me.”

“Perkele, you need to drop this.” Toivo runs a hand over his buzz cut.

That’s his tell. Before he shaved his head, he was a compulsive hair-tugger. Now he only ever scratches at his scalp when things are starting to get to him. He’s rubbing his head so hard right now, he might actually leave a bald spot. That, combined with the irritation on his face, lets me know I’m on to something.

“If you don’t fill me in, I’ll tell Mom and Dad what you’ve been up to.” I’m precariously close to pushing the big red button that’ll make my brother go nuclear, but I really need to know.

“You have no idea about anything.” The frown on his face makes him look an awful lot like our mother.

“I only want to help Natalie,” I say. “What’s your excuse?”

“There’s nothing you can do for her.”

He’s right, you’re useless, pathetic, worthless, the voice tells me as if I don’t already know it.

“I hope you’re next,” I fire back. Remorse instantly knifes through my belly, but I’m not apologizing.

“You know, I just might be.” He jerks open his door.

The hallway light illuminates a sliver of his bedroom, and my eyes go wide at the dozens of sigils scrawled across the walls—sigils like the ones I glimpsed in the book on chaos magic.

“You should be grateful,” he continues. “For once, your lack of magic might actually be a good thing.” With that, he slams the door in my face.

16

All things considered, it could be worse. Being grounded sucks and is absolutely not fair at all. The worst part isn’t being housebound all weekend, it’s that Dad switched off the Wi-Fi and confiscated our phones.