Rax

We take the secret tunnel up to Kaisa's room, where Eero and I flop on the bed to wait while the girls get changed. Essie is wet from her charge and it's been literally all night. We're doing the gentlemanly thing and letting the girls get changed first, but happily Essie has dragged enough of my clothes up here so I'm able to get changed too. We checked on princesses on the way, they're fast asleep, now I'm in a fresh set of my clothes, dry and mostly healed and getting warm staring at the fire, with Eero only occasionally chastising me about the new scar on my stomach.

"You really didn't know?" I ask, quietly, We're sitting at the foot of the bed, because I tried to sit on the floor and Eero got all upset saying I'd been recently stabbed.

"Didn't know what?" he frowns, confused.

"The girls--?" his physical relationship with Maija was something of a sore subject with me, for obvious reasons.

"I knew about Leena—the timing was off. I suspected Liala too but, I wasn't positive. I didn't care, they looked like me, what did it matter?" he says, shrugging a little.

"I suppose," I feel like I can't ask him about that. It's fine if he's okay. I know he has to have biological children.

"You don't think he'd hurt them?" Eero asks, nodding in the direction of the nursery. We've decided that until we come up with a Maku-proof way to tell who is and isn't Maku, we need to stay together.

"I have no idea what he'd do right now," I say, shaking my head. For once I have no answers. No ideas.

"He's your---you knew him better than I did," Eero points out. He is like my brother. Apparently he's technically Eero's brother.

"I thought I did. I knew he had magic—but other than the odd simple spell I never saw him use it. He's been studying, practicing on his own it would seem—but you're the only one who's ever seen me do magic either," I point out, sighing, "I just don't know what he's capable of---and if he is your brother as he claims then we're out of luck he's definitely stronger than I am."

"Like I said that isn't---entirely surprising with respect to my parents—I could see them doing something like that---and we never knew where he came from did we?" Eero asks, "I'm sorry; I don't know what he said his history was---I only knew he didn't have family like you---except you do have family."

"No, he was a foundling—supposedly, raised by a few of the maids who also had little ones, just sort of lumped in with them and my dad's kids until he was old enough to do lessons with the Royal Guard. Same as me except my dad never lumped me in with his real family," I say, "So it could very well be true."

"Even so. Please don't walk up and stab people?" he says, putting a hand through my still wet hair.

"Yeah okay," I say, smiling a little.

"You done? So who do we think killed Maija?" Essie strolls out. 

"It didn't do a lot of good to say 'you done' when you just walked out," Kaisa says, following her overeager handmaid who also flops on the bed. It's been a bonding night. Kaisa sits primly on the edge. They're both in clean dresses and thick purple and pink sweaters, with clean scarfs.

"Sorry your scarf is rather ruined I bled on it," I say, nodding to the blood clothes I folded at the foot of the bed.

"It matched the dress you also bled on. You bleeding is still more of an issue than the ruined dress—anyway, knowing what we do now--- who do we think killed the princess?" Kaisa asks.

"More important how does he think he knows? It doesn't even matter what happened it matters what he thinks happened," I point out, "That's our problem."

"Well, who's he most inconveniencing right now other than me?" Eero sighs, leaning against me, again it's been a long night.

"My father? Your father? Everyone in the King's Guard who's repeatedly killing ghost bears and all other hauntings?" I sigh.

"And like you said how does he know? You said he was with you that night and therefore knew as much as you do?" Essie says.

"Ah, but he was seeing her maybe he knew somebody she'd had a fight with?" I point out.

"No—the manner of death is too complicated. It's not like someone pushed her down the stairs. She was locked outside---someone she trusted lured her outside and then locked the door," Kaisa says, "He's insane now ---like you said he's probably not even blaming the right person or thing."

"This isn't really overly off for him," I say, wincing.

"It really isn't," Eero says.

"Like, he was always toeing the line of not at all well, you saw the memories I can show you more---he was an odd sort. Always. In fact, I was highly skeptical when they told me he'd died I thought it was in character to fake his death I just thought he wouldn't have enough restraint to keep it from me this long. I wasn't counting on him being in love," I say.

"That's it—you're right Rax," Kaisa says, triumphantly, "He was truly in love with her. In all of his memories that I've seen—they're about how much he loved her. He was tortured because she didn't love him for who he was she thought he was someone else---you Eero---and that was destroying him. She was the one thing he wanted but because of his station he thought he couldn't have."

"So?" Eero asks, "What does that tell us?"

"So he said it himself—he's the curse. The curse is on him—and he's said multiple times how tied he is to this castle, how it's a part of him. It's all he's had this last year what if----what if it's what killed her?" Kaisa says.

"Reacting to him and his magic—his strength is tied here to the castle, so inadvertently it shoved her out into the cold when he was drunk and angry he couldn't be home holding her in his arms?" I say, quietly.

"Could it do that?" Eero asks.

"We don't know what it could do, do we?" I ask, "The curse is powerful---more than that so is he. He's been shape shifting for hours. I can't even do that for a minute---we have no idea what he's capable of and neither does he. What if it was an accident as you said? That's the most plausible way we've thought of her getting out there that night."

"You said he was off getting drunk, right? You found him the pub and dragged him home," Eero confirms.

"Right," I say, "But the gates were locked. As usual-- when I leave my father always does that."

"So you spent the night with your mother but---why was he getting drunk do you know?" Kaisa asks.

"He didn't tell me. I honestly didn't think of it with what happened after," I sigh. I should have asked him later. But I was worried about Eero, and the girls. He was moody and quiet he always is. I didn't know he was heartbroken too. 

"Maija dismissed the servants---all of them, because the girls were ill," Eero says, snapping his fingers. "We'd both been up all night. I told her it was all right and to go to bed. She dismissed the servants since I was staying up, and she went to bed herself. Unwittingly removing any witnesses to her murder."

"And angering him," Essie says.

"He was always on duty up here with the family," I say, frowning.

"He was probably lingering around hoping to switch with you," Kaisa says.

"And who he thought was his own daughter---we were sitting up because we thought she was dying," Eero says, sighing, "It was bad. Leena had such a high fever. Rax had done what he could, but she wasn't healing."

"He wanted to stay and heal who he thought his own daughter while she could have been dying—but Maija dismissed him with the rest of the servants inadvertently angering him."

"He healed her the next day---he healed them both—he stayed behind while we went out looking," I groan, putting my head in my hands.

"So what we're saying is it's entirely possible he accidentally induced the castle to kill her or whatever?" Essie asks.

I nod painfully.

"But wait—that's all well and good but guys that's not telling us who he thinks he's getting revenge on?" Eero says.

"Shit, you're right, it's not," I sigh.

"The castle! You just said it—he's not murdering it because he can't-- it's his own castle," Kaisa says, quickly, "That's it, it has to be."

"Okay, well how do we pacify him and stop him from doing that?" Eero asks.

"He's dangerous we're not pacifying him here," I say, looking at my burned hands. My burned ruined hands. The fate that awaits Mako, the only thing to kill a mage. A vat of boiling oil.

"He's upset, he hasn't actually hurt anyone," Essie says, a little sadly.

"He did stab me, but okay."

"You were only a little stabbed."

"He stabbed me."

"You got better."

"He stabbed me—and kidnapped you and you," I say, nodding at Eero and Kaisa, "He's not exactly safe to be out right now."

"Essie has a point he saved me from the ghost last night. And we do still need to understand why Maija's coming back," Kaisa says, "He's not going about things the right way and I admit he's volatile, but he hasn't actually hurt us."

"Well well well what are we plotting?" Maku appears at the end of the bed.

"Catching up with you actually, what do you want to do here?" I ask, sighing.

"Yeah, look, I'm ready to be perfectly reasonable so far as talking with our parents and you having whatever it is you want with the throne I mean really seriously it's yours take it, and me going away someplace but we do need to talk," Eero sighs.

"Perhaps later. For now I had lots of lovely plans prepared none of which included you discovering me," Maku says.

"Also, I think we should tell the girls the truth and sit down with a calendar at some point because you make a good point we look a like and they both look like us and their mother, and I for one want to stop confusing lies in this family it's stupid the confusing lying thing is the curse," Eero says, not even mad.

"I will handle my daughters. You, and your boyfriend and your new fiancé and however that girl adds into it---"

"I'm her handmaid," Essie says, helpfully.

"You really don't have to explain things to him," I say.

"---will all stay out of my way," Maku says, and before Kaisa or I can block, we are all four apparated outside the castle. Well, I assume it's outside, yes it is. We're in a snow bank anyway.

"Why?" Eero doesn't even get up. He hates magic being done to him.

"I don't really know," I say, tugging him up.

"Seriously?" Essie was headfirst; Kaisa just pulled her out.

"Any chance you think the gates are unlocked?" Kaisa asks, shivering.

"None whatsoever," I sigh.

"We'll freeze, what are we going to do?" Essie asks.

"Call my mother," I say, resignedly.