Finn sat down beside me and asked them, “What do you know about this?”

“Not much.” Mia flipped through the first few pages absently, her brow furrow deepening, and she shook her head. “Nikolas’s—” She stopped, her eyes flitting to me. “Hanna’s—” She stumbled again, now looking to Finn.

“Nikolas’s father wrote children’s books,” she started again, and this time it went more smoothly. “He published a few of them, but all of that was when Nikolas was very young. By the time I was dating Nikolas, Johan hadn’t written in years and years, and he’d put that all behind him.”

She looked at me and Finn. “Why are you asking about it?”

“Because it’s just like I said!” Hanna announced excitedly. “This book is about Eliana!”

“Maybe,” I allowed. “But there are some things that correlate to real life in unusual ways.”

“What do you mean?” Mia asked.

“I think I’ve met Jem-Kruk,” I said, filling her in on all the things I’d told Finn on the car ride home. “And Senka—JemKruk’s friend mentioned in the book—may be my mother.”

“Wait.” Hanna’s big brown eyes widened. “Are you saying that your mom is related to my father? Does that make us cousins?”

“No,” I told her definitively before she got carried away. “No, I haven’t read anything that suggests that. But it does seem like your grandfather might know something.”

“What about Eliana? I was reading the book, because there were things that matched up. Like the grapefruit pink sky, the suns called Kyr, Nuk, and Veli, and the dragon reference,” Hanna said without taking a breath. “There’s probably even more, but she didn’t remember much—” She gasped. “Do you think that what happened to you is the same thing that happened to Eliana? Like with her amnesia?”

“I—I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe, but she had forgotten her entire life. I’m only missing the past month.”

“I bet it’s the same,” Hanna said firmly.

All the while Hanna and I had been talking, Mia had been leaning back in the chair, her arms folded over her chest, and her lips pressed into a tight line that only grew tighter.

“I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time understanding,” she said. “Nikolas has been gone for a long time. What could he possibly have to do with—with—” She waved a hand in frustration. “With your imprisonment, and my daughter’s elusive pixie friend?”

Mia took a deep breath and the severity of her expression relaxed slightly. “This all seems strange and . . . overwhelming. For me.”

Upstairs, Liam let out an angry yell, which was followed by Emma screaming.

“Hanna, why don’t you go upstairs and help Grandma Annali with the kids?” Finn suggested. She rolled her eyes, but she complied.