River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1)

The reindeer starts running, the sleigh tugged through the snow until it finds the tracks left from before. Rasmus tries to steady himself while keeping me as warm as possible, but no matter how many blankets he puts on me, I don’t feel any warmer. I’m iced to the bone.

“Where are we going?” I ask, teeth chattering. I want to point out how nuts it is that a reindeer-pulled sleigh was his preferred escape vehicle over a car, but Sulo is really picking up the pace and we’re gliding along deeper into the pine forest. I look over my shoulder at the hotel and I barely make out the lights at all. I certainly don’t hear or see either of them.

I’m just heading off into the darkness with a stranger and a reindeer.

Once again I’m hit with a wave of fatigue, but this time I don’t think it’s anyone in my head. The adrenaline is starting to wear off.

“We’re going somewhere safe,” Rasmus says. “Your father’s house.”





Chapter 3





The Cottage





I wake up to the smell of fresh cedar, cardamom, and baker’s yeast. For a moment I’m back at my father’s cottage on the lake, when I used to wake up in my tiny room with the heavy wool quilts at the foot of the bed, simple watercolor paintings of flowers on the walls, and smell the tinctures he was preparing for the day, along with the pulla bread he’d make me for breakfast. It’s a nostalgic smell, one that makes me want to curl up under the covers and go back to sleep again, content.

But when my fingers pull on the covers, I realize I have no idea where I really am, and all the strange and horrific images from last night come crashing into me.

I gasp and sit straight up, nearly hitting myself on a low log beam from a slanted ceiling. I’m in an attic of sorts, weak gray light coming in through the small windows at either side of the house, ice and snow at the corners of the frames.

“Are you awake?” I hear a voice from downstairs and it takes me a moment to place it. Names flip through my head until I find one that makes sense.

Rasmus. That voice belongs to Rasmus.

But who the fuck is Rasmus and the what the hell happened to me?

I start to pull off the covers but something makes me stop and stare. There’s such a familiar feeling to them in my hands, such a sentimental weight. I stare at them in the dim light, taking in the blue and red pattern of snowflakes and squares, then look at the rest of the blankets that are all folded at the foot of the bed, and fuck…I’m not imaging things. These are the same blankets I had as a child, growing up in the house in Savonlinna, and then later at my father’s cottage. These are his blankets.

I throw them back and am relieved that I’m still wearing my jeans and sweater, then get out of bed, careful not to hit my head on the low ceiling, go over to the ladder and poke my head over the open space. The soothing smell of butter, sugar and cardamom comes floating up, along with cozying warmth.

I go down the wood ladder and find myself in a small living area with an even smaller kitchen just beyond it. Everything about this place is both familiar and strange, making me uneasy and yet comforted. The knotted walls house many rough-hewn shelves made from birch bark. On them are an assortment of books, both leather-bound and hardcovers, as well as worn booklets with tattered covers, held together with loops of golden twine. Crystals of all sizes and colors are peppered between the books alongside tiny glass jars stuffed with herbs, and wooden cups with feathers, twigs and paintbrushes sticking out. Above is an impressive reindeer-antler chandelier that dwarfs the place, and across from me is a roaring crackling fire. I spy the mantle above it with framed photos, and am about to walk over to it to get a closer look when Rasmus says, “Good morning.”

I whirl around to see him in the kitchen, which I swear was empty a moment ago. He’s pulling a tray of buns out of the oven, the warm smell of spices filling the room. I stand there and stare at him for a moment, trying to wrap my head around the weirdly domestic scene.

“Where am I?” I ask.

He nods at the mantle. “As I said last night…”

I turn and go over to the pictures. There, in tarnished gold and silver frames, are pictures of my father. One of them he’s with Rasmus beneath the northern lights with a bottle of vodka in hand, in another he’s standing in front of the hotel, looking proud. But all the rest of the photos are of me. Some are of the two of us, like the self-timer he took of us when he was dressed as Santa Claus, but the rest are just of me. There’s me at a dance recital when I was eight, there’s me in Swan Lake when I was sixteen—the last recital I would do—an elaborate headdress of swan feathers on my head. There’s me at Venice Beach with Jenny, another one of me joking around at work. I have no idea where he got all these, then I realize they’re all on paper. He must have printed them out from my Instagram account.

“Papa,” I whisper, a lump forming in my throat. I pick up the photo of the two of us on the dock. “You did all this?”

“I told you he talked about you all the time,” Rasmus says from behind me. “I know you don’t know me from Adam, but that’s why it feels like I know you. Here.”

I twist around and he’s handing me a ceramic plate with a chip out of it, a warm bun on top. “You need to eat. It’s pulla. I’m sure you’ve had it before,” he says before he walks back to the kitchen. “Your father’s recipe, by the way.”

I eye the bun stuffed with cinnamon and cardamom, sprinkled with big shiny hunks of pearl sugar. My stomach growls ravenously. There’s a slight chance that Rasmus is trying to poison me, but if he wanted to kill me he could have just left me behind with Noora and Eero.

At the thought of them I shudder. It’s enough to squash my appetite. I take the plate over to the couch and sit down, watching as Rasmus tidies the kitchen.

“So,” I begin, trying to form my thoughts and keep the panic at bay. “I hate to be blunt, but now that I’m awake and apparently in one piece, you need to tell me just what the fuck is going on here. Because I can’t tell if last night was a jet-lag infused nightmare or not, but either way you have a lot of explaining to do.”

Rasmus sighs and then comes over to me, holding two mugs of something hot and places them on the tree-trunk coffee table in front of me.

“What’s that?” I ask, nodding at the mug.

He raises a brow. “I’m not poisoning you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He sits down on a leather armchair. “It’s pine needle tea.”

I peer down in the mug to see a few pine needles floating as well as a couple of tiny flower buds. They’re dusky pink in color, yet when I move the mug and the water jostles, the flowers look gold, like they’ve been painted with a metallic sheen.

“And the flowers?”

He takes a sip of his tea and then smiles. “Frost flowers.”

“What are frost flowers?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

I stare at him for a moment. “Can you fucking blame me?”

“You swear a lot too. Your father didn’t mention that.”

I ignore that. “Tell me where he is. Then tell me why we’re in his house. Tell me how you’re his apprentice. Then tell me what the fuck Eero and Noora wanted. In that order.”

He lets out another low sigh, tapping his fingers on the leather armrests. “I’ll tell you everything. And it will be the truth. But I need you to drink your tea first.”

I stiffen, eyeing the tea for a moment. “Why?” I ask hesitantly.

“Because it will open your heart and mind. What I’m about to tell you will be hard to believe at first, but it’s imperative that you believe. The tea will help.”

“How do I know this tea isn’t going to make me forget everything you say?”

He chuckles, looking positively boyish, and I’m briefly trying to place his age again. He could be eighteen. He could be in his mid-thirties. He might even be in his eighties since he just used the word imperative. “There’s another tea for that. And I don’t want you to forget a single word. I’m going to need you to remember. The truth will serve as fuel.”