His eyebrows pinched together, and his eyes filled with concerned confusion. “You asked me to pick you up here. We spoke on the phone a few days ago.”

“What?” I shook my head in dismay.

“We were negotiating your release for weeks.” Finn put his hands on my shoulders, warm and comforting, and he bent slightly so he could look me in the eye. “You were held hostage by the Älvolk.”

Fresh tears sprang into my eyes. “I don’t—”

—an image flashed in my mind: Noomi glaring down at me, and a tall man looming behind her.

A painful bolt of lightning shot through my brain, and the image dissolved to Eliana. She wore a long white dress and stood in front of a raging waterfall—

“I don’t remember,” I stammered. “It’s only bits and pieces. I don’t know where I’ve been for the past month.”

“Okay, it’s okay.” Finn put his arm around me. “We’ll figure this out together. The important thing is that you’re home now.”

The baggage carousel let out an angry alarm announcing the incoming luggage, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. A moment later, my battered old duffel bag tumbled out on the conveyor belt, and I ran to grab it, as if someone else would run and snatch it before I had the chance.

Even though I really wanted to open my bag and dig through it right then and there, to see what of my possessions I still had, it didn’t seem like a good idea around so many humans.

I didn’t even really feel comfortable being around them at all, so I grabbed my bag and followed Finn out to his car without really saying much. I sat stoically in the passenger side of the Jeep until we were out of the airport completely, and on an open stretch of highway.

“What about my friends?” I asked finally. “Were they released too?”

“It’s my understanding that Dagny Kasten, Elof Dómari, and Panuk Soriano were released back to the Mimirin at the same time you were released back to Förening,” Finn said.

I let out a sigh of relief and rested my head back against the seat rest. “How come I’m here and not in Merellä?”

“It was a condition of your release,” he explained. “You were not to return to the Mimirin.”

I looked sharply at him. “What? Why not?” I suddenly flashed on Noomi, glowering at me, and Indu, his weathered face and unrelenting smirk. “Who made the demands?”

“Wendy did most of the negotiating,” he said, referring to the Trylle Queen and his friend. “Along with the head of the Mimirin, the Korva, Ragnall Jerrick.”