After I’d finally been tired enough to sleep on the cot-bed with velvet covers, I had shoved my laptop under my bed and promptly forgotten about it.

Until it started ringing—an odd da-da-da sound—and Bryn popped from where she was planking on the floor. “What was that?”

“I think I have a call,” I said uncertainly, and I pulled the laptop out and sat on my bed. I flipped it open to see a green phone icon flashing on the screen, and when I clicked on it, a video chat opened so my whole screen became Hanna’s face.

“You answered!” She was all smiles and freckles, framed by her dark curls.

Behind her, I saw Mia holding one of the twins—I couldn’t tell which from the angle—and she waved at me and said, “Hello, Ulla.”

“Ulla!” Liam suddenly appeared in the frame, practically pushing his older sister out of the way to shove his face as close to the camera as he could get. He pointed to the fresh gap in his wide smile. “I lost a tooth yesterday!”

“That’s awesome,” I said as Hanna pushed him away.

“Mom, Liam’s butting into my chat!” Hanna yelled, and somewhere in the background, I heard a baby crying—Lissa, it sounded like to me.

At the sound of the kids arguing and babies crying, Bryn stood up and excused herself to go shower.

“You don’t own Ulla!” Liam pouted. “I can talk to her too!”

“I have something important to talk to her about!” Hanna argued, then she looked back over her shoulder. “Mom! I need privacy!”

“Liam, kids, come on,” Mia said. There was some whining, but she herded the kids out quickly, and the sound of Lissa crying faded until I couldn’t hear it at all.

Hanna let out a dramatic sigh. “Finally I get to talk to you. You’re usually so hard to reach when you’re gone.”

“The Omte kingdom has great reception actually,” I said. “The hotel even has Wi-Fi.”

“Nice,” she said, and looked impressed.

“How are you doing?” I asked. “How is everything at home?”

“We’re all fine.” She waved it off. “That’s not why I called.”

I heard someone mumble my name, and two chubby tan hands reached up for Hanna. She kept looking at me—well, the camera—but she reached down and pulled Niko onto her lap. He was nearly four years old, but he was small for his age, making his big brown eyes appear even larger under his mop of dark curls.

“Ulla!” he said, more clearly this time, and waved at me.

I waved back. “Hey, buddy.”

“I have to talk to Ulla, so if you want to stay, you can’t interrupt,” Hanna warned him, and he nodded dutifully before making faces and watching himself in the corner of the screen.

“So what’s up?” I asked.