It was at the airport, when my head was pounding, that the song came back in full swing. For the past couple days it had been pleasantly absent, but now the song of the morning flower and the summer bird was on a constant refrain. And it didn’t really help that being around so many humans could make me jumpy.

It had only been seven hours earlier that Bryn gathered us all together, and we arranged our travel plans out of the Omte kingdom. We’d all gone to the Lafayette airport together, but Bryn and Bekk parted ways from us to head northeast. Everything happened so fast, there was no point in wasting money on a hotel room if we didn’t need to be in Fulaträsk.

It was me, Pan, and Elof on a layover in Houston. Elof usually tried to make friends with anyone around, but he sprawled out on an airport bench, his carry-on luggage propped under his head like a pillow.

Pan, meanwhile, had left to find something to eat; his stomach seemed to fare much better with rich human food than mine did, if the way he’d slammed an energy drink earlier was any indication.

I was exhausted, my head was throbbing, and the song was on a never-ending loop. The human sitting beside me kept bumping me with their elbow, and I was sick of traveling.

Suddenly, I wanted to cry because I just wanted to go home, even though I didn’t even know where that was. But when I closed my eyes and thought of home, the first thing that came to my mind was the loft bed in my apartment with Dagny. The sunlight through the windows and the open airy loft, with Dag, Pan, and Brueger hanging out on the lumpy couch.

I thought of my soft old bed and downy comforter, and I wondered if there would be enough room for Pan in the bed with me—

—but Noomi’s voice cut through my daydream, practically growling as she said, “You’re never going home, Violetta.” She used the name my mother had chosen for me, spitting it out as if it were a slur. “You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere. And once Father’s used you up, I will throw you back in the hole you crawled out from.”

“I got you an apple and a bottle of water,” Pan was saying, pulling me from my thoughts, and when I opened my eyes, I was surprised to feel tears spilling down my cheeks. “Oh, jeez, Ulla, I can go find you something else?”

“No, no.” I hastily wiped at my eyes. “That’s fine. I’m just tired and . . . just really tired.”

Pan sat down beside me and put his arm around me. “It’s okay. I understand.” I leaned into him then, and the song in my head finally quieted a little. “We’ll be home soon.”