Chapter Forty-Four Amund
Edith is in danger and doesn’t even realize it. I race through Skallagrim, desperate to find her before something happens. Why won’t she pick up her damned phone? I must have called her ten times by now. Am I already too late? Has something happened to her?
For a moment, Emilía flashes before my eyes.
Only this time, it isn’t Emilía.
It’s Edith.
No. I won’t let that happen to her. I have to find her. And fast. My legs pump harder. I checked the cafeteria already, but she wasn’t there anymore. Did she already head back to her dorms? I race through the quad, sprinting toward Odin Hall—
There.
I spot Edith and her sister being escorted back to their dorm by Val. Thank the gods.
“Edith!” I call out.
She spins around, her eyes wide. “Amund?”
“Why weren’t you answering?” I ask, running over to her.
“Sorry.” She bites her lower lip, searching my face. “My parents arrived, so we went to greet them. They have this weird thing about phones. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
I look her over, making sure she’s unharmed. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”
Edith nods. “Valerie was with us the whole time.”
“Thank you,” I tell Val. “I owe you.”
Val arches an eyebrow. “What are you so freaked out about?”
Maybe it’s time we told Val everything. To ensure the safety of everyone at the Unity Dance, I’m going to need her help. I can’t do this alone, and there’s no one I trust more than her. If she hadn’t rescued me, who knows if I’d still be alive?
Val has saved me in more ways than one.
“Well…” I say, unsure where to begin.
Edith clears her throat. “Bea, why don’t you head inside? It’s getting late.”
“Fine,” her little sister says with a yawn.
Once Bea’s inside safely, Val glances between us, her eyes narrowed. “I think we need to have a little chat.”
“I have a lot to fill you in on,” I say. “Both of you.”
“So a berserkr is next?” Edith asks as soon as I finish.
Val drags a hand through her braids. “Shit, I had no idea.” She shakes her head, frustrated. “And here I was thinking it was a wild berserkr…”
“That’s what Helga wants everyone to think,” I remind her. “She said she’s going to deal with Irina herself, and the Unity Dance will continue as planned.”
Val rubs her forehead. “But it also marks the thirty-year anniversary of the Tragedy. And now someone is trying to perform the same ritual again? I don’t like it. You haven’t found Egill’s pelt yet, have you?”
“No,” I admit, shaking my head. That damned pelt. “But it has to be her.”
For some reason, I still don’t mention my father to Val.
Even Helga agreed it couldn’t be him. It must be Irina.
“Helga will probably use the truth-teller tea on Irina,” Edith chimes in. “Like she did on me. That way, she can confirm that Irina is the killer and find out where she’s keeping the pelt. As long as we’re right about Irina, then the Unity Dance should be safe.”
“If you’re right.” Val’s words are as pointed as one of her daggers.
“And that’s a big if. Let’s say you’re wrong, and someone else is the killer.
All they have to do is kill one berserkr, and this spirit transfer ritual will be completed, right?
Practically every seier practitioner is gathered at Skallagrim right now.
Look what happened thirty years ago, the last time people were possessed. ”
“Everyone could die this time,” Edith says slowly, sounding terrified.
I can’t blame her. Bea is here, and her foster parents just arrived.
They’re the only family she has left.
“I know,” I say gravely. “That’s why I have a backup plan.
” I turn to Val. “You know the lupine canisters we carry in case a berserkr student loses control?” When she nods, I continue, “Well, I have an idea. Since we can’t be certain the killer won’t attack the dance, what if we had a larger canister of lupine gas? ”
“Kind of like tear gas?” Edith asks. “What about the berserkir?”
Val nods. “That could definitely work. Lupine gas only causes mild irritation in humans, even berserkir, unless they’re transformed. Which the killer will be if they’re going to attack the dance.”
“Exactly.”
Edith worries her lower lip. “Even so, I think we should warn the other berserkir. At the very least, I want Tala, Isaac, and Kris to know.”
“Fine,” Val adds. “But only those three, or else the killer could get wind of our plan.”
Edith doesn’t seem happy about it, but she agrees.
“We’ll tell them everything in Heightened Senses tomorrow,” I finish. “But first I have to speak with my father.”
I head for Father’s office next. There’s still something I need his help with.
I knock on the door, only to realize it’s already cracked open.
Father is leaned over his desk, a map of Skallagrim’s campus spread over it, along with floor plans for the gymnasium.
He looks haggard, exhausted in a way I’ve never seen before.
I hesitate, trying to find my resolve to finally confront him. Talking to him isn’t as easy as Helga made it sound. The door creaks, betraying my presence.
Father looks up, frowning. “What is it, Amund?”
“I had an idea.” I head inside his office, unclipping the berserkr spray I carry with me at all times and place it on his desk. “What if we made a much larger version of this for the Unity Celebration in case the killer decides to attack?”
Father picks up the spray. “You want to create our own tear gas?”
I nod. “But we’re going to need a lot of lupine.”
He sets the spray down before walking over to a cabinet nearby. He pulls the doors open, revealing shelves upon shelves of vials filled with purple liquid. Concentrated lupine extract. There must be hundreds in there.
Father grins. “Will this be enough?”
We get to work, grabbing some vials and an assortment of bottles. Father removes a large metal cylinder from his wall of weapons and sets it down on the table. “In my spare time, I’ve been working on different methods of dealing with our wild berserkir problem.”
“Is that a grenade?” I ask.
“Only a tear-gas grenade.” He unscrews the lid. “Don’t worry, it’s empty. We can create a tear-gas-like mixture using the concentrated lupine extract and some seier. You had an excellent idea, son. You should be proud.”
I have to fight a smile. “Thank you.”
As he gets to work on the mixture, I decide now is as good a time as any. He seems to be in a pleasant mood. And Helga is right: I have to talk to him. I can’t avoid acknowledging this forever.
“Helga mentioned something interesting to me earlier,” I begin. “She said that you’re a seer.”
Father pauses. Looks up at me. “Is that so?”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I ask, meeting his gaze.
He looks away, his brow furrowing as he empties one of the vials into a flask. “Honestly? Because I’m ashamed of what I am.”
Whatever I expected, it wasn’t that. I stare at him.
I know that feeling all too well. For years now I’ve felt ashamed of being a hunter.
“Why?”
“Nothing good ever came from spirits,” Father says, focusing on his task. “I know what you’re thinking. What about seier, right? But this world would be a better place without our magic. At the very least, berserkir would not exist.”
I ball my hand into a fist at my side, thinking of Edith. “That doesn’t sound like a world I want to live in.”
“Well, you haven’t seen the things I have” is all Father says.
The silence turns suffocating.
I bring my gaze to the photo of his dead brother on the wall. Trygve stares back at me.
“Like the Tragedy?” I ask.
Father considers a long moment.
“Even back then,” he says, “there were never that many seers. The rules were very strict. We were held to the highest standard, as we should be if we’re going to walk the line between the living and the dead.
“But your uncle, he… he was driven, intelligent, determined. I looked up to him, and so did many others. Trygve was a born leader. He wasn’t happy with the limitations our instructors placed on us.
So he formed a secret society of seers, one where they could explore the boundaries of their power without any oversight from adults. ”
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room.
I stare at Trygve’s portrait. “Wait… are you saying my uncle was responsible for the Tragedy?”
Father nods gravely. “A spirit convinced Trygve to perform a ritual to return the spirit to our realm. Trygve and his followers, those fools, believed the spirit would be indebted to them and would grant them more power, just as spirits once taught us seier.” His voice turns bitter.
“If only they listened to me. Spirits cannot be trusted. They always have their own agenda. Trygve didn’t realize that by doing so, he would open a gateway for any who wished to return. ”
My blood runs cold.
What he’s describing sounds like the student Edith and I overheard arguing with his teacher in the seer school. That student must have been my Uncle Trygve.
“That is why the school had to be closed,” Father continues.
“Since the Tragedy, the door to the spirit realm was torn open, allowing spirits greater access to our world. With the veil between worlds so much thinner, ghosts have more power there, and can be seen and heard by anyone, not just seers.”
“What actually happened back then?” I make myself finally ask.
“When I realized what Trygve was doing, I tried to stop the ritual, but I was already too late. Trygve was a damned fool. The spirits who had returned were the most vengeful ones—those who had died at Skallagrim over its long, brutal history. They stole the seers’ bodies and began to unleash havoc on the campus, killing as many as they could. ”
The weight of his words settles over me.
I shake my head slowly. “I… had no idea.”
No wonder Father never speaks of Trygve or the Tragedy. He must blame himself for his brother’s death. For not being able to stop the Tragedy in time. If I were in his shoes, so would I. Suddenly, it makes sense why Father is as hard as he is. Those events changed him.
“Then what happened?” I ask, fearing I already know the answer.
“Complete carnage,” Father says solemnly. “After being attacked, some berserkir lost themselves to a killing frenzy, unable to turn back. Many more seers, witches, and hunters died that day, including Trygve and the possessed students who were responsible for bringing this down upon us.”
My stomach plummets. “Those berserkir… they’re the wild wolves outside of Skallagrim, aren’t they?”
“That’s right.”
No wonder Father hates the berserkir so much, and why he insists on hunting the wild berserkir so relentlessly. Those are the berserkir who were involved in the Tragedy. Who knows how many students they killed that day?
But it was Trygve who caused the Tragedy.
“Afterward, seers were banned from Skallagrim,” Father continues, pouring the finished mixture into the grenade.
“Any surviving seers were dismissed and the school shut down. Because I tried to prevent the Tragedy and wanted nothing more to do with my power, I was allowed to remain here as a hunter.”
Father screws the lid back on tightly and replaces the safety clip. “I’m determined to do whatever it takes to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. Thirty years ago, Trygve used the Unity Dance as a distraction so they could sacrifice three seers under the guise of an initiation ritual.”
That must have been what Edith and I overheard at the seer school.
Irina’s aunt—a witch—was one of those three sacrifices.
She was trying to warn us.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Father says, holding the finished lupine gas grenade out to me. “But I am sure of one thing. History repeats itself. So whatever happens, it’s going to be on the night of the Unity Dance.”
The six of us show up early to Heightened Senses.
We have thirty minutes before class begins, so we’d better make this quick.
Edith and I tell them everything. Turns out she already told Isaac and Tala about Emilía’s death, but they didn’t realize Idris’s death was also connected, or that one of them could be next.
“Wait,” Isaac interrupts. “Don’t tell me you thought it was me?”
Edith winces. “Maybe for a while.”
“Sorry, Isaac.” Tala rubs her forehead. “I knew it would upset you, and you already felt so guilty about Emilía, so I never told you.”
“Damn,” Isaac says, shaking his head. “I would never have hurt Emilía.”
Edith is quick to jump in. “I know. I realized that during our primal therapy.”
“Primal therapy?” Val pauses cleaning under her fingernails with her knife.
“It’s a berserkr thing,” Tala says quickly.
“Hmm.” Val studies Tala for a moment before she returns to cleaning underneath her nails. “Sounds fun.”
I clear my throat. “Anyway, like I was saying.”
We finish filling them in on everything.
Once I’m done, Val is first to speak. “I still think there could be other seers we don’t know about.” She shrugs. “I’m not convinced Irina is the killer. But whoever it is, they’ll be at the Unity Dance. Everyone will be.”
“I agree with Valerie,” Tala says, twisting her dark hair. “We need a backup plan in case Irina isn’t the killer. All our families are going to be there. We can’t take any chances.”
Not Val, I think. Her family won’t be here.
If Val is upset, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she gently works the tip of her dagger under each nail, concentrating on her task.
“Tala actually agreeing with me for once?” Val says, but her lips curl.
“Consider me shocked. But the Unity Dance is our best bet to figure out who the killer is, once and for all.”
“I want in,” Isaac says. “I need to know who did that to Emilía.”
Kris is quick to respond. “I’ll help too.”
Edith blows out a long breath. “How do we identify them? We have no idea who else could be a seer.”
“Wait,” Kris says. “You said they need Egill’s pelt, right? One of us might be able to smell it on whoever stole the pelt, even after they removed it.”
I nod. “Edith and I haven’t had any luck so far.”
“No offense to Edith,” Isaac cuts in, “but she hasn’t even transformed yet. Her sense of smell isn’t as heightened as ours, and neither is yours, for that matter. Tala, Kris, or I would be able to recognize it.”
“It could be worth a try,” I admit.
Tala frowns. “There’s only one problem. We aren’t familiar with the pelt’s scent.”
“I can take you to where Egill’s pelt was kept before it was stolen,” Val says, glancing up from her knife. “That should be enough for you to scent it, right? Because your senses are so much better than ours?”
Tala smirks. “Of course.”
Val’s eyes spark with challenge. “Then I guess we’ll have to work together,” she says slowly, but it doesn’t sound like she hates the idea of teaming up with Tala one bit. “If the killer is someone else, we can capture them at the dance before they hurt anyone.”
“The dance is tomorrow night,” I tell them. “We need to be prepared for anything.”