“No need,” Dagny said. “Amalie and the board took care of it. Our apartment is paid through the end of September. She said we shouldn’t be punished for a crime committed against us.”

“That was very generous of them,” I said.

“Amalie has been quite magnanimous,” Dagny admitted. “Far more than other Mästares.”

“Why do you think she’s being so nice?”

“She wants to find out what she can about the First City. The other Mästares seemed more concerned with following the rules.” She sighed then. “So it goes.”

In the background, I heard a loud clatter, and Elof calling Dagny’s name.

“I have to go help Elof with something,” she said. “I’ll talk to you soon, though, Ulla. Stay safe.”

“You too,” I told her, and ended the call.

Then I lay back on the air mattress, and I stared up at the fluffy white clouds on the pale blue ceiling of the twins’ room, and I tried to figure out what I was going to do from here.

7

Binrassi

Niko had been the first one to sneak into the room, but I was ready for a reprieve from my growing anxiety. Everything felt so up in the air, and I was so untethered.

Not to mention the near boundless hospitality that Finn and his family had shown me. But I couldn’t possibly expect that to last forever. They had six children and Finn’s mother to worry about, plus Finn’s high-stress job as the minister of defense of the entire Trylle kingdom.

I allowed myself a few more minutes alone with Niko, reading him a passage from Sunny Plants for Funny Kids. It didn’t say much of interest. With petals of gold and nectar of red, this big flower smells of the dead. When I finished, I put it back on the shelf and scooped Niko up in my arms before heading downstairs.

I found Mia and Hanna in the kitchen, trying to make sweet-and-sour red cabbage with mushroom and quinoa sausage for supper with the twins crawling around. I managed to entertain the littler kids, keeping them out from underfoot while Mia sautéed and boiled in pots and pans at the stove, and while Hanna cut and prepped nearby and made quite the sous chef to her mother.

Hanna used the time to ask me a thousand questions, but she grew increasingly disappointed with my constant refrain of “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember.”

“How long are you going to be here?” Hanna asked finally.

“Um, I’m not sure.” I sat cross-legged on the floor, with Lissa on my lap, leaning forward and using her pudgy hands to help her sister stack perilous towers of plastic cups.

Mia was sautéing the mushrooms with her back to me, and she looked over her shoulder at me. “You know you can stay here as long as you want.”