Aleksei scoffed. My throat tightened as I studied him—pale and dark-haired, an Imperiya Wolf sitting at a table with them as though there were nothing strange about it at all. But he sat just as easy as the rest of them. “Rihttá is actually their stepmother,” he answered me. “Shame. Inheriting her face would have been lucky. You all got stuck with your father’s looks, Torden excepted.”

Anya’s brother, Fredrik, rolled his eyes. “Yes, poor, ill-favored Bragi suffers especially.” One of the boys—Bragi, the perfect one—barked a laugh. At my side, Anya’s fingers tightened around her knife and fork, and her mouth thinned.

“Dronning Rihttá is from Sápmi,” she said quietly in my ear, referring to the land of roving hunters north of Alfödr’s kingdom. “The kongen had never been married before he married her about fifteen years ago.”

“I—oh. Of course.” I glanced over again at the queen. She was obviously too young to be their mother. Alfödr’s oldest sons looked at least twenty-five.

“None of us here are hers by birth, but Hermódr might as well be.” Torden scratched his beard and nodded at his brother. I blinked, caught off guard by his deep voice. This close, I could see his eyelashes were the color of rose gold.

I didn’t know what he meant by none of us here—were they hiding more brothers somewhere? “There are a lot of you,” I mumbled, poking at my plate.

“Well, you’re not going to confuse any of us with Týr and the twins.” Hermódr pushed up his glasses and nodded down the table, where Alfödr’s oldest sons tore into their dinner, shouting over one another. I cringed. Týr had food around his mouth—goose fat and foam from his beer. Cobie, no manners mistress herself, sat among them in grim silence.

“Poor Selah.” Aleksei leapt up to stand behind me. “Never fear. We are easy to remember, once you get to know us.”

I only had time to register Torden’s horrified expression before Aleksei seized my shoulders and twisted me toward Anya. “Our prinsessa is beloved, but no one is prettier than Bragi.” He flicked a hand past her at Alfödr’s fine-featured son. Bragi smiled tightly.

“And yet”—Aleksei gave my shoulders another tug, forcing me to face Anya’s brother—“no one does better with the ladies than Fredrik.”

Fredrik opened his mouth to protest, but Aleksei only raised his voice in my ear. “Hermódr is studious, impressively responsible, the only real grown-up among us.”

“Hmmph.” Hermódr rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses as though he had a headache. “Perhaps if I’m in a room alone with you.”

My head was spinning. “What about you, Aleksei?”