Free Talk: Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed this story, is following it, or has added it to her favorites! I feel very grateful for the support. This chapter took a little longer than previous installments, quite possibly because it is very full of dialogue. Dialogue is a bit trickier for me than action. While I would classify this chapter as more informative than thrilling, I hope it does answering some questions and helps set things up for exciting action to come. Please tell me what you think!

Outcast
By Angelsaurus

Chapter 10

"What do you mean draw him out?" As I asked this, I put my body in front of Su-san's like a wall. What this would accomplish didn't even pass through my mind. It was all happening on an instinctual level; these people had triggered my protective response.

"There is no need for you to raise your hackles, young Finland," China said gently, and I relaxed a bit, but kept my guard up. "All I meant was that you are the only one who awakened Ancient Scandinavia and lived. Your resemblance to Astrid might turn out be an asset. But rest assured that I would not have you do anything that might endanger Sweden's body or soul."

"My stars, but he really does look like that Astrid!" The voice, lilting and girlish, belonged to Ancient Greece, who was looking at me with wide hazel eyes.

Strong arms snaked around my shoulders and I drew a sharp breath merely because it caught me off guard; I had no problem with Su-san touching me. "I th'nk y' folks owe us some expl'nations," he said, his warm breath kissing the back of my ear. "How've y' all been able t' live fer so long?"

China nodded. "Yes, you boys have earned the right to know. But first, I think a proper introduction to the members of the Founders' Guild is in order. Starting on your far left is Helena, embodiment of Ancient Greece."

"Pleased to meet you," she chimed.

Beyond just her voice, everything about her was feminine and lovely. My first impression from the painting had been Athena, but in person she was much closer to Aphrodite. Her skin was smooth and olive-toned with a faint luster like it had been dusted with powdered gold and her shape was soft and round in the very best sense of the words. Curls the color of bitter chocolate were piled generously on top of her head in a loose up do.

"And next to her is Evelyn," China continued. "The Ancient Celtic Isles."

She nodded. Here was another stunning beauty, this one with a complexion as pale as milk, save for a dappling of golden-brown freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her thin nose. Rust-red hair fell down her back in long, thick waves and her eyes were as bright green as sliced open kiwifruit. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that green eyes were an indicator of innate magical talent—Vice President England certainly supported the idea—and if it really were true, this woman must be a sorceress.

"Torvald's chair is empty, of course," said China. "And then there is the Roman Empire, Alessandro, who you have already met informally."

Alessandro thumped his breastplate proudly, momentarily filling the room with a reverberating clang. "The spirit of the Roman Empire but named after a Greek conqueror," he chuckled. "How do you like that?"

The young man sitting next to him rolled pale grey-blue eyes in annoyance. He was Ancient Germania and the next in line for introduction. "Leopold," he said before China had a chance to. He put a controlled smile on his thin lips when he looked at me. His hair was long and dirty blond and his attire was a rustic composition of pelts and leather. The only thing needed to complete his Germanic tribesman image was a horse.

"Well then, you already know me," said China. "And that just leaves Ancient Egypt, Amunet."

The woman's painted lips curled up. "Pleasure."

Ancient Egypt was slender as a Siamese cat and held up her chin with as much elegance as one. Her skin was coppery brown, and her hair—or perhaps it had to be a wig to look so perfect—was pin straight, black as a crow's feathers, and cropped in a Cleopatra cut. Jet-black mascara outlined her dark, almond-shaped eyes adding to her feline mystique. Like the other two woman, she was incredibly beautiful.

"Together we comprise the St. Hetalia Founders' Guild," China concluded. "Now I am sure you boys have a lot of questions to ask, and I think we should move to a more accommodating location before answering them." He turned to Alessandro. "Shall we relocate to the lounge?"

"Ah yes, our guests will be much more comfortable sitting down," he replied, and he and the other Founders all stood in unison like a practiced church choir.

While the others walked down from the platform and filed through an inconspicuous doorway in the back left corner of the room, China came to us. "I know it must seem like stalling," he said softly. "But you will be able to relax much better where we are going." Then he indicated with a gesture that we should follow him.

Su-san's arms were still embracing me from behind and my own hands were hooked over them, holding them in place. I had to admit that our poses did not exactly project relaxation. But maybe I didn't want to be relaxed. After all, I still wasn't sure that I could trust these apparent immortals, who right now were acting entirely too laid back for the gravity of the current situation. And, truthfully, it did seem like they were stalling.

China, however, was a different case. He was my friend and I wanted to at least retain the trust that I'd had in him when I thought he was the sixteen-year old Student Council Historian and nothing more. It's not like China had actively deceived me; I had only assumed his age because he was in the same grade level as Su-san. But that icy look he had given me when he told his colleagues that I could draw the possessing spirit out of Su-san made my insides churn uneasily.

As I stood there, worrying when I should have been moving, the sheltering arms around me slackened and Su-san's warm hand slid into mine. "C'mon, F'nland," he said. "Let's go f'nd out th' truth."

"Right," I said with a determined nod. Whether or not the Founders' Guilt were trustworthy, whether or not they were stalling or failing to take the situation seriously, they were still the best chance I had of learning how to save Su-san. And that was all that mattered to me now.

Hand-in-hand, Su-san and I exited through the door the Founders had used and followed China's back around a corner or two until we ended up in a spacious room with a roaring fire—though I had no idea where the smoke went—and several different seating options arranged around it in an approximate circle. Our hosts were already making themselves comfortable in leather armchairs that were curiously identical to those in the Student Council room.

Alessandro hefted off the bulk of his Roman armor and hung it up on a wooden cross, which seemed to exist only for this purpose, and it settled with a resonant clank. Then he sank into his chair with a sigh, the last of the Founders' to do so. "You kids can sit anywhere that isn't occupied," he said in our direction. "The remaining armchair technically belongs to you, Sweden. Or, rather, to the guy taking up residency inside of you."

Su-san hastily towed me over to a loveseat on the opposite side of the room from Torvald's chair. "This will do," he said, giving my hand a squeeze. I wouldn't want to sit in my possessor's chair either.

The Founders' lounge had more in common with the Student Council room than just the armchairs and the fireplace, which was admittedly less fancy than the one upstairs. There were also crowded bookshelves and high ceilings, though the lounge had notably more works of art—the subjects predictably taken from the mythology and history of their seven favorite civilizations—and fewer implements of war. I also noticed another unique feature nestled in one corner of the room: a table laden with elegant crystal decanters, filled with what I was quite certain were various liquors and wines.

Helena, queenly in her leather chair, was clutching one such vessel and tipping its burgundy contents into a wine glass, and making a visual sweep of the room, I could see glasses of wine already in the other Founders' hands, everyone's except China's.

"Would either of you boys care for some wine?" Helena asked.

Alcohol was probably the last thing I wanted right now and the offer caused suspicion to itch on the back of my brain. Were they trying to get my senses dulled and reactions slowed? No, it was probably just a gesture of hospitality. But still, I wanted to stay sharp so I politely declined. "No thank you. We're underage, at least by Finnish law."

"Drinking laws don't apply down here, darlings," Amunet said in a voice that reminded me of a lioness purring. "Many cultures, past and present, would allow boys your age to enjoy wine. Are you sure you don't want any?"

"Quite sure," I said, and my eyes flitted up to Su-san's to observe his reaction. He nodded his chin assertively. It comforted me that we were of the same page of the alcohol issue and boosted my confidence. "Can we get this conversation moving?" I asked.

The Founders—minus China—looked at me in slight surprise, as if they hadn't expected any sort of boldness from a kid like me.

"Yes, let's get this meeting underway," Alessandro said, letting his face settle into a vaguely amused expression. Though none of the Founders looked a day over twenty-five, he had those creases at the outer corners of his eyes that people who spend a lot of time laughing and smiling get. "Sorry if we came off rather intimidating back there. As you can imagine, we almost never get chances to show off like that. Now, what do you want to know first?"

"How are you guys still alive after five-hundred years?" I blurted out impatiently. Even without a watch on me, I could tell it had been at least ten minutes since Su-san had first asked that question and gotten answer.

"I will tell you," China said soberly. At least he was taking the situation as seriously as I was and the others seemed to respect him, falling as still as statues when he spoke. "The seven of us began as strangers, seven young people from different corners of the continent, who met each other by chance and became friends because we shared the same dream: to build a school. It would be a school unlike any other that existed at that time, teaching both boys and girls from every part of the known world and imbuing them with the wisdom of the great ancient civilizations.

"We poured our very souls into the project. Once we had found this secluded bit of wilderness, far away from the prying eyes of those who would judge, we laid the first stone and a powerful spell was inadvertently cast. It was a spell that allowed us to live forever as the beating heart of the school."

My forehead scrunched in confusion. "Inadvertently?" I asked. "You mean you didn't intend to become immortal?"

China shook his head. "It was not intentional. Though, factually speaking, we are not immortal. Our souls are, and our bodies have not aged or suffered any disease or natural ailment since that day, but, as Torvald demonstrated, they can still be destroyed."

Torvald, The name sent a thin trickle of ice water down the center of my back. He was the St. Hetalia Founder that I needed to know about. "How was his body destroyed"? I asked, barely above a whisper.

"Suicide," China said dispassionately. "But I will get to that. When we realized that our bodies never grew older, never became sick, we knew that we had been blessed with a very rare gift and that it was intimately tied with the school. So, after running St. Hetalia from the surface for several years, we retreated to the underground to protect our corporal existences and our secret, and to continue carrying out the job we had started."

"Y' mean mak'ng all th' decisions 'bout th' school?" Su-san asked.

"That's right," China said with a nod. "But of course, governing from below presented certain challenges. That is why we created the Student Council and divided power between us and them. Naturally, somebody needed to act as an envoy between the two groups, and that task fell to me. Since the day we went underground, China has always served as Student Council Historian."

Now that didn't make one bit of sense. "Hasn't anybody noticed that you haven't graduated for hundreds of years?" I asked in a loud and flummoxed way that made several of the Founders snicker. Even China looked mildly tickled.

"That is a very reasonable question," he said. "The answer being that I have graduated from St. Hetalia, well over one hundred and fifty times, actually. Every three years I graduate, and the following semester I start fresh as a first year student."

"But…" I only got out one word of my next interrogation before China quieted me with a simple lift of his hand.

"Yes, young Finland, somebody surely would notice," he said, having assumed correctly where I was headed. "If I had enrolled each time using the same name and face."

I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I understand using a different name, but… face?"

A bewitching chortle fluttered across the room. "I believe it's time for you to show them your talent, Yao," said the red-haired woman, Evelyn, as she gave the remaining wine in her glass a gentle swirl with a flick of her wrist.

My attention locked onto China and I knew that I didn't need to say "talent," with the intonation of a question, for him to know that I was asking. His brain had a habit of being one answer ahead of me.

"When you were recovering in the school infirmary, I mentioned that I possess some magical skills," he said. "And one of them is the reason why I was given the position of delegate." He stood up from his chair, calm and graceful, and closed his eyes. His lips twitched faintly at the corners, his nose wiggled slightly, and suddenly I was looking at a stranger's face; eyes, mouth, cheeks, nose, all had taken new shapes.

"How… how did you do that?" I asked, slack-jawed and staring.

The unfamiliar China chuckled softly; the sound of his laugh was still the same. "Like England's magic, it is an inborn talent that I have nurtured over the years. Learning to act like an entirely different person, however, is something I have had to work hard at. Fortunately, not much change is needed for people to believe they are meeting a stranger for the first time. I daresay some of the students here think all Chinese people look more or less the same anyways. But a change of face and a slight body adjustment removes all doubt." He flashed an enigmatic smirk at me. "I can do more impressive transformations as well."

I wouldn't have believed what happened next if it weren't playing out right in front of my eyes. Like opening a release valve on a blow-up raft, China seemed to deflate inside his clothes. Starting from the roots and spreading to the tips, his black hair turned white, and then, even stranger, it appeared to retreat back into his skull until it was too short to be worn in a ponytail and the rubber band popped out. A mere second later, the wizened little man who had driven me from the train to the school was standing in front of me, albeit dressed in China's sagging brocade jacket.

"That's phenomenal!" I gasped. "So that was you who picked me up in the car?"

"Indeed," he said. Then he drew in a breath and inflated back into the China I was accustomed to and sank back into his seat with a sigh. The other Founders gave a perfunctory round of applause, acknowledging his talent even though they had seen it too many times to be genuinely impressed.

There was a brief moment of silence before the gentle pressure from Su-san's hand reminded me why we were here and I had to urge the discussion forward. "So why did Torvald kill himself?" I asked. It was a brash move, but understanding that guy was the best chance I had of learning how to free Su-san from his possession.

"Ah yes," China said, unperturbed. "Getting back on topic. The move underground meant leaving our surface lives behind, saying goodbye forever to those we loved. This was a difficult transition for all of us, but we were devoted to the school, six of us entirely. Only Torvald's devotion was split, for he alone had a spouse. When he descended with us, his young wife, Astrid, was left with the news that he had died.

"He never got over losing her. The years passed and his heart remained a world away with her, even after she remarried and had children and grandchildren. When word came that an aged Astrid had fallen terminally ill, he ran off—despite admonishment from the remaining six—to see her one last time. There was nothing we could do to stop him, but when he refused to return to us after Astrid's passing, we became seriously concerned."

"How come?" I asked. "If you guys can live forever, what's wrong with him spending a few years on the surface to grieve?"

My question cast a disquieting shadow over the Founders' faces and their spines straightened stiffly in their chairs.

"Torvald is one of us," Amunet said pointedly. "His place is here at the school."

"She's right, the Seven Founders belong together," Alessandro said and there was a hard edge in his voice, like he was stating an ironclad law. "Which is why Yao was dispatched to retrieve him. He was the last person to see Torvald alive."

"I witnessed his death firsthand," said China. "By the time I found him, he had already made up his mind to kill his physical body, and nothing I did or said could have stopped him from throwing himself off that cliff."

Next to me, Su-san fidgeted. "Off a cl'ff y' say? Awful way t' go if y' ask me."

China bowed his head solemnly for a moment and I wondered if he was remembering the horror that he witnessed. "Yes," he said, returning his gaze to us. "It was a horrific end for his body. But his soul, because of the founding spell, could not pass on to the next world. He might have wandered the globe restlessly for decades upon decades until he encountered you, young Sweden. Or perhaps he possessed other hosts before you. His aimless wandering was punishment for abandoning his family."

"But now the one being punished is Su-san," I said.

"And that is why we are all here right now," China said. "To figure out how to safely separate Torvald's spirit from Sweden's body."

At last our mission statement had been stated plainly. I felt bolstered, more determined than ever now that I'd heard Torvald's story. Of course, I was no closer to accomplishing my goal, at least not in any quantifiable way, but I was better equipped to face the challenge head on.

Since China had stopped speaking and appeared to be taking a moment of meditation, the other five Founders were back to their laid-back mood. Helena poured herself more wine then passed the bottle over Alessandro's lap to Amunet on the other side. Evelyn was leaning over the armrest of her chair to whisper something in Leopold's ear. It all dredged up that uneasy feeling I'd had about the Founders before.

"Come over here and let me take a look at you, boy," Alessandro suddenly said. I looked at him in astonishment and pointed shyly to myself, like I was asking a question. He barked out a laugh. "Not you, kid. I'm talking about your friend, Sweden."

I turned to have a soundless conversation with Su-san. A nervous, tightlipped expression told him that I wasn't sure if it was a good idea. With a pensive lowering of his eyebrows he said that he knew these guys were a bit strange. Then he steeled his face to let me know that he would be okay and I gave him the "if you have to" sigh. My hand remained wrapped around his as he stood up, holding onto him until he took enough steps away from me that it became impossible.

Because I was so focused on watching after Su-san, poised on the edge of the loveseat as Alessandro held his chin and assessed his face from different angles, it took me completely by surprise when Helena popped into my field of vision and grabbed hold of my wrist. Her dazzling white smile was disarming and I was dumbstruck.

"Come with me," she said in her sweet, musical voice as she yanked me up onto my feet. "I want to show you something."

"I… uh… okay…" I managed to mumble out as she led me like a toddler to the other side of the lounge. There resting on her knees was Amunet, her lean frame angled over an open hope chest. The whole time, my head kept twisting to look over my shoulder at Su-san. "This is about helping Sweden, right?" I asked.

Amunet sat up and smiled at me coyly. "Of course, of course," she said. "This chest here contains things we couldn't find any better place for and I think there might be some items that were left behind by Torvald." Then, without warning, she leaned in her face close to mine and for a moment I thought she was going to kiss me—I had to wonder if there something about me that invited unwanted kisses—but she merely stared at my face from centimeters away. "You know, you really do look like Astrid. It's in the eyes."

I swallowed my annoyance at being yet again reminded of my resemblance to a woman and simply said, "That's what I've heard."

She ignored me and dove back into the large wooden chest and Helena joined her. There wasn't enough room for three sets of arms to toil in there, so I just stood back and watched them sift through the contents, listened to the clinks and clatters as they foraged.

"Ah, found it!" Helena chirped. She pulled herself up and held out her discovery to Amunet. It was an old looking wooden box, roughly the size of a phonebook, with an intricately carved geometric pattern visible beneath a coat of dust on the cover. "This is the one, right?"

Amunet's eyes widened to saucers and she snatched the box covetously. "That's it!" she said in an excited whisper. She opened the hinged lid and tugged on my arm urgently. "Check this out, Finland. Astrid's wedding headdress. I can't believe we ended up with it."

While Amunet held the box, Helena lifted out the delicate crown from its velvet-lined cradle. It was an exquisite creation, a woven wreath of flowers crafted out of precious gold and studded with tiny ocean pearls. There was a long veil of tissue-thin lace, yellowed by time, attached to it. I was amazed that such a fragile treasure could have survived the centuries, especially if it was just tossed unceremoniously into this chest. But before I had time to think too much into it, the crown was on my head. Something cold touched my collarbones, a string of pearls slipped around my neck from behind.

And then several things happened almost simultaneously:

China sprang from his chair with a growl. "What the…? What are you doing?"

Amunet called out in a voice as clear as a bell. "Alright Alessandro, turn him around to meet his bride."

And I was shoved into the center of the room to meet a horrified pair of blue-green eyes.

My blood stream clogged with ice when Su-san's gaze connected to mine, my heart became one big frozen clot. Alessandro was holding him by the shoulders, aiming him right at me and I soon realized that Amunet and Helena were restraining me in a similar fashion. Either one of us could have simply turned his face away, but neither of us did in time. China leapt in between us but was likewise too late to prevent what happened.

Su-san's irises stained ultramarine as if a vial of indigo ink had been poured into the liquid aqua of them. His pale, chiseled lips curled up into a smile that was downright predatory and he moistened them with the tip of his pink tongue. And to think I used to find the real Su-san frightening.

He removed himself from Alessandro's grip as easily as someone shrugging out of a cape, and although the other Founders were calling to him—to Torvald, and asking if it was really him—his sights were set solely on me.

"What is the meaning of this?" China roared, but a mere swat from the back of Su-san's hand sent him tumbling backwards into one of the leather chairs with enough force to topple it over.

How could Torvald's spirit make Su-san's body so absurdly strong? It was futile to try to run or hide from him. He scooped me up in arms as sturdy as steel girders and cradled me against Su-san's chest. When he spoke, however, his words weren't for me but for the others who had swarmed around us.

"So you managed to lure me back here by using my Astrid as bait. Bravo. You five are just as conniving as ever. But you, Yao, seem to have gone soft over the years. Come on, now. Get up. I know you can."

China was up on his feet in an instant, his face a mask of simmering rage as he stalked over to the group. I never imagined he could look so furious. "You promised me there would be no tricks!" he snarled at his fellow Founders. "We agreed that the plan was to try and separate them!"

"Agreed?" Alessandro said with uncharacteristic smugness—inasmuch as I understood his character from the short time I'd known him. "If I recall correctly, we five wanted to do exactly what we just did and you were the sole objector. Sometimes, for the greater good, dissenting opinions must be thrown out."

"Greater good?" China growled.

Amunet flashed a conceited smile at him. "The Seven Founders are together once more."

Su-san's arm tightened possessively around me, making me squeak. "And I have my beautiful wife back," Torvald cooed, nuzzling Su-san's face into the crook of my neck.

I'd been too shocked to speak or struggle up till now—and knew that neither would do me any benefit—but my ability to keep still and quiet had just worn out. Useless as I knew it was, I flailed my arms and legs against his rock-hard body. I didn't even care that I had an audience. "I am not Astrid!" I spat. "I'm not a woman at all! I'm a boy! Can't you tell?"

Dark, dark blue eyes stared down at me as my fingers fumbled behind my neck for the clasp of the pearl necklace. Once it was off, I removed the wedding headdress and, not wanting to throw such beautiful artifacts on the ground, handed them off to China. I hardened my face into what felt like a very manly expression and patted my flat chest with an open hand.

"See? Boy! Not Astrid."

Torvald set me down, eyes never leaving my face, but kept his hands on my shoulders to prevent me from running away. Suddenly he loosed a booming laugh. "Oh course you don't have Astrid's body. But you are Astrid! I can see it in your eyes that you are Astrid reborn!"

"No!" I tried to push away from him with both hands but he just pulled me closer. "I am not Astrid! I'm Tino Väinämöinen!"

"So you're Tino," he said with the odd intonation that indicated he had heard the name before. "You're the one he keeps calling for."

My heart jumped right into a racing rhythm. "Who?" I demanded, even though I already knew the answer in the pit of me. "Is it Berwald? Is he in there? Can you hear him?"

I could somehow tell from the quality of silence around me that every eye in the room was watching this Torvald version of Su-san expectantly, but none had the same investment that I did. My hope was chained to the answers to these questions.

"Oh yes," he said in a snakelike voice, seeming to derive some sort of sick glee from sharing this. "I can hear the boy. Berwald. Heh. He's surprised that you called him by his name instead of Su-san."

"He can hear me?" I gasped as a bolt of new excitement struck me like lightning. This was new; Su-san had never been aware during a possession before.

"It's a very strange feeling," Torvald said. "I've always been able to shove the boy into a unconscious compartment until now. It's like he's finally found the strength to fight back. But he's still completely outclassed. He's like a mouse in a glass cage in the back of my mind. No matter how hard he claws or how loud he screams he will never get out."

The thought of Su-san trapped in a cage made the bile rise in the back of my throat, anger so raw—like I'd never felt in my peaceful little life—that it frightened me. "I hate you!" I wailed, whipping my tight fists against him like ineffectual mallets.

"You say that now," said, untroubled, as he absorbed my attack like it was nothing. "But you are my Astrid, after all. Eventually you will come to love me like you once did."

"Never!" I spat. "I only love Su-san! Love Berwald! And I will see to it that you get the hell out of his body!"

Torvald grinned wickedly. "If you force me out I will take him with me, you know. If I can't be with the person I love, there's no way I'm going allow him the privilege. That's why the others had to die."

In one short speech, he'd revealed the motive behind his murders and admitted his capacity to give Su-san the same treatment. I felt sick. I felt terrified. I felt weak and desperate and helpless. Tears I couldn't control were gliding down my face and dripping from my chin.

"Yao, take the boy back up to the surface," Alessandro's voice commanded from somewhere nearby—I couldn't see him through my flooding eyes. "He has already served his purpose. And of course, I am deeply sorry for having to deceive you like that. Only for the greater good."

I felt China's hands grip onto my shoulders and pull me away from Su-san's body, and surprisingly, Torvald let him. As China guided me away—my body just wouldn't move of my own volition—I shot a final contemptuous glare at Torvald and the other Founders who surrounded him like a sinister cadre. It was painfully difficult to do since I felt so much affection for the boy that face rightfully belonged, but I was able to focus my loathing on the murderer inside him.

"I will be back," I hissed, though it came out more pitiful than menacing due to my crying, which still refused to stop. "I will be back to save Su-san."

Those bottomless ultramarine eyes narrowed on my face and Torvald spoke in a voice that was low and hungry. "I'm counting on it."

China didn't say a word as he ushered me out of the lounge, through the interrogation room, through the columned atrium that I couldn't find any beauty in at the moment, and out the bronze double doors. He didn't say a word as we trudged zombie-like up the towering spiral staircase and my tears ran out and my crying became soft hiccups. Only after we'd completed the half-hour journey back to his room where I collapsed to my knees on his floor did he finally speak.

"I'm so sorry, Finland," he said and there was genuine, heartbreaking guilt in his words. "I had no idea that they were planning to manipulate you and Sweden like that. And I'm sorry that…" He paused. "I'm sorry that I wasn't able to stop it. I gave you my word that no harm would come and I failed to keep it."

My sore and swollen eyes turned up to look at him, the five-hundred-year old wizard with the face of a teenage boy. "You can't blame yourself," I said hoarsely. "They tricked you, too."

He turned his gaze out the east-facing window—the sun had emerged but was still low and orange in the morning sky. " I am still one of the Founders' Guild," he sighed. "And I cannot disown them, even if their behavior disgusts me."

"You aren't like them at all," I said so softly that I had to question if I really intended it for him or myself. He wasn't like them, at least not like the horrible side of them I'd just had to witness. China was kind and compassionate; I wondered if that came from spending his life with those of us destined to die.

"Here," China said, offering me his hand as if to reinforce the complimentary thoughts I'd just had about him. "You'll make yourself ache if you stay slumped on the floor. Come lay on the bed and I will fix you some chamomile tea."

I sniffed and nodded, let him help me up and shepherd me to his bed, and curled up in the indentation that had been left by Su-san's body while China hung an iron kettle over his fireplace and lit the flames below it. The pillow still smelled like Su-san's hair and it ripped my heart in half all over again.

"I have to save him," I said, my voice muffled by the pillow as I hugged it against my face to inhale every last bit of scent. "There has to be a way. There just has to."

I felt the mattress sink beside me and propped myself up. Despite having come to sit with me, China's eyes were once again aimed out the window and across the lake. He wore the most wistful expression I had ever seen on him and I knew something significant was going on in his head. "I have come to believe that there is a way to remove the spirit of Ancient Scandinavia, Torvald, from Sweden's body without destroying Sweden's soul. It is the only way. And it will not be easy."

Immediately, I bolted upright. "I'll do it! Whatever it is, I'll do it! I don't care how hard it is! What… what is it?"

He looked at me with eyes so dark and serious it made me shiver. "The only safe way to rid Sweden of Torvald's spirit is to get him to pass on to the afterlife. And the only way to do that is to break the spell on the Seven Founders."

The immense weight of what he'd said took a moment to settle on my chest and when it did I had to gulp in air alleviate the pressure. "Break the spell? But wouldn't that mean… you and the other Founders…"

"Yes," China said. "We will die."

To be continued…