Once Hanna had gone, Finn looked to his wife and apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this would be upsetting to you. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, it’s fine.” She shook her head. “How is this all connected?”

“I think the place in the book is real, and that Johan has been there,” I said. “And I think it’s where my mother and Eliana are from.”

“He never mentioned anything like that,” Mia said. “Johan and Sarina had lived in Eftershom since before Nikolas was born. They never even talked about living anywhere else.” She paused, thinking. “At an anniversary party once, Sarina did say something about them moving into their house right before the big thunder snowstorm.

“Not much happened in Eftershom, so everyone talked about the big thunder snowstorm that happened two years before I was born,” Mia said. “So that was 1989.”

“That was before the book was published,” Finn said. “At least, according to the publication date on the back page.”

“He wrote that book for Nikolas, when he was still a baby,” Mia explained. “So he had to have published it from Eftershom. But by the time I started dating Nikolas, we were teenagers. We didn’t want to talk about fairy tales or his father.”

She looked out the window, watching pensively as the branches of a weeping willow swayed in the breeze.

“I just haven’t thought about any of this in such a long time,” she said finally, still staring off. “I can reach out to Johan. Obviously, he’ll know more about his own life than I do.”

Finn got up and went around the table to sit beside her, and he put his hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know why, thinking of Nikolas just . . .” She managed a sad smile and pushed her chair back. “I just need a moment.”

Mia went into another room, and Finn waited a beat before going after her. I knew that she loved Finn and their children and their life together, but she had also loved Nikolas. She didn’t talk to me about her first marriage much, but I knew they’d both been young and in love. Mia had only been nineteen when she became a widow, and Hanna was still in diapers.

It was nearly ten years ago, when the Trylle and Vittra were at odds, gearing up for what would be known as the War for the Princess. It officially kicked off when the Vittra attacked the sleepy Trylle village of Oslinna, where Mia, Nikolas, and Hanna were living at the time. Hobgoblins with supernatural strength snuck in during the middle of the night and completely decimated the town.

Mia said once that it looked like a tornado had gone through afterward, with houses completely flattened. Nikolas was killed trying to protect Mia and Hanna.