“You’re the journalist,” he says.

I start typing, and nine minutes and three seconds later, I get Morgan to proofread what I’ve written then hit post.

“Now what?” Morgan asks.

“Now we come up with a plan,” I say. “Because I think I know how we can find Natalie and your sister.”

18

“Here’s the map.” I flatten the page so Morgan can see.

We’re sitting cross-legged on the floor of Aoife’s room, both leaning forward to look at the page. The drawing isn’t the best, but it’s all we have to show us the location of each tonttukivi.

“Joakim has talked about liminal realms before,” Morgan says once I’ve given him a crash course on the stones. “We’ve got portals like this back home too, usually marked by a cairn as well.” He taps the map.

The image is recognizably Finland, the dotted borders cutting the country into wonky pizza slices showing areas of magical energy. There are a lot more areas up north in Lapland. The south only has four divisions, with a tonttukivi in the middle of each of them.

“We’re here.” I point at the tiny dot of Myrskyjärvi almost one hundred kilometers outside of Helsinki. The closest tonttukivi is seventy kilometers to the west. Natalie said there was snow on the ground.

“Hey, can you look up the weather for the last couple of weeks?” I ask. “We’re looking for snow.”

Morgan taps at his phone and pulls up archived weather reports. Two tonttukivi sites have had recent snow.

“This is the closest.” A spot in the middle of nowhere northeast of us. “We should go.”

“Think we’ll find Hannah there, just like that?” Morgan asks, so horribly hopeful.

I don’t want to be the one to crush his hope, but honestly, this is a long shot. “It’s the best lead we’ve got.”

“Why take students to these things at all?” he asks.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. I think it’s connected to the break-in on Svalbard. Seems they were after this Finnish relic called the Sampo.”

“I’ve heard of that. Supposed to be super powerful,” Morgan says.

“Exactly, and it’s somehow connected with making my mom look bad, politically I mean.”

Morgan looks away and silence blooms like mold in the space between us. I give myself a mental kick for mentioning it, but now that I’ve gone and dumped a load of awkwardness between us, I better deal with it.

“I know your mom and my mom have their issues—” I take a deep breath. “But whatever they’ve got going on doesn’t matter right now.”

“Agreed” He smiles, and relief douses me like cool lake water after a midsummer sauna. “I don’t care if our parents have beef, you’re my friend.”