Chapter 3

That "safe house" could have almost been passed off as a surprise hotel stay to the children if it weren't for two important details. One was that it wasn't far away enough from Mora to justify not sleeping at home for the next few months. The other was that while they had a whole suite at their disposal, she and the children had to share it with the people whose idea it had been to bring them here in the first place. Siv still wasn't sure whether these people were actually keeping them safe or had used that story as an extremely subtle version of the very kidnapping they claimed she and the children risked if they stayed home. Since she had the liberty to go where she wanted in the suite provided she didn't leave, she decided that the best place to be was the radio room. Unfortunately, the two dark-haired siblings, for a good reason, had refused to have any of the children in there. The children had been taken in the other room by that Finnish man named Onni. While he claimed to be present for the same reason as the two dark-haired siblings, he seemed to be a glorified errand boy, and now babysitter, in practice. There were at least ten other people in the house, all under the employ of the dark-haired siblings, who, even if they weren't who the claimed to be, were definitely actual siblings. From what Siv had figured, this was the "important people suite". Onni had been allowed to stay in it, but insisted on earning his keep even if the dark-haired siblings said he didn't have to. This, combined with the fact that the person they would have otherwise used as an errand-boy could be used elsewhere resulted in Onni running around the suite doing most of the grunt work, to the point that Siv had started feeling slightly guilty about waiting around while the dark-haired siblings were trying to reach their contact.

A young female voice finally answered the radio in Icelandic:
-Uh... may I ask who's calling?
-Are you the Silent World expedition, by any chance? asked the man among the dark-haired siblings.
-I still need you to state your name.
-Fine. I'm Bjarni Árnason, Reynir's older brother. I have one simple message for you. Whatever you do, do not leave him alone with this Helena woman.
-Ah, that? We already know about Helena. My cousin saved Reynir, but the troll she intended to have kill Reynir killed her instead. We also figured out that your father... wait, you're the brother who didn't come to see him off. Why are you calling?
-Because one of our father's back-up plans was to use your family members as leverage to force you into obeying his orders if Helena couldn't take care of things on her own. My sister Hildur and I have been busy making sure all potential hostages were safe.
-Oh dear, Onni!
-You must be Tuuri. The servants we were sending to Keuruu to secure him ran into a mess of tears trying to get to Øresund base claiming that that his little sister and cousin had run away from home as they were about to take the boat to Finland. Fortunately, we made sure to hire people with brains. While I'm thinking of it, tell your colleague Emil that his aunt and cousins are with us as well. His aunt is currently being cautious about us, so we've been letting her see what we've been up to. Your brother's watching the kids in the other room. Want to talk to him?

After the Finnish siblings exchanged a few words in their own language, Emil confirmed the story that the dark-haired siblings had told Siv, even though he hadn't seen much of what had happened first-hand. Bjarni and Hildur next talked to the expedition's Norwegian captain, who pointed out that having everyone's family members secured meant that Hildur and Bjarni themselves were now in a position to use them as hostages if needed. She didn't like the idea, and asked for a few proofs of good faith before she decided to trust them. That Sigrun woman knew enough about that family to know that these two were supposed to have two older siblings, and asked what they were up to. The older siblings had apparently gone to see young Reynir off along with their parents, not realizing what was going on. Hildur had apparently been the first to figure out something was up, but Bjarni had been the only one she'd been able to convince before things reached a point where time was best used in setting up a counter-plan with the resources available to her rather than in gathering allies. Speaking of allies, it turned out that the now technically rogue expedition had made a few allies back in the family main residence in Iceland: Torbjörn and a couple of Reynir's other private tutors, who both happened to be childless only children. They eventually got the captain to trust them, at least for the time being:
-One last thing. Part of our cover in case your old man asks is that the radio broke in such a way that it can only reach the guys back in Iceland. Mora is a little too close to the place we're pretending to be unable to reach. Can you stick to mage-to-mage contact?
-That we can, answered Hildur.
-Fine. Ours sleeps during the day, so I hope your mage likes daytime naps.
What were they talking about? Hildur spoke again:
-This will be a problem neither for Onni nor for myself. Ah, this reminds me. Those pills, even those that were not laced with poison. Do not give them to Reynir.
-Why? They are supposed to be for bad dreams, and with what the kid just went through...
-He was not given these for nightmares. A treatment that is often given for nightmares happens to also block another kind of dream, which just happens to be easily mistakable for a nightmare the first time. Let's just say that the gods have tried to warn him a little more directly in the past.
Sigrun remained silent for a noticeable amount of time, as if that last sentence carried a very heavy meaning. She eventually answered:
-You're the one with the fancy education, you tell me how I'm supposed to explain this to a Danish medic.