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sat on the edge of the chair, her guard still up.
    “Well, I’m glad to have found you looking none the worse for wear this morning. Not everyone was so lucky.”
    She glanced down. It was still hard to believe that every other person she’d met underground was dead now.
    He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs on the table, like he was settling in for a story. “One of your sisters is here.”
    “You mean—another Norn?” She sat up straighter, more hopeful that he really might have answers for her.
    “There are three of you in Irminau, and Ingrid—”
    “We aren’t in Irminau,” Nan said. “I wasn’t even born there.”
    “Details, details. The river unites Irminau and Urobrun in spirit if not in borders.” He took his feet off the table and spread his hands across the map depicting the two countries.
“And you must know that we were one country, two hundred years ago.” He pointed at the northern region of Irminau. “The river Urobrun originates from the mountains here and flows
through the great forest of Irminau.” He traced the line of the river through Irminau, the larger of the two countries. Urobrun was like a small triangle snipped off the tip of Irminau, but
it had much of the fertile land and access to the sea. “Magic flows from the forest to the river, spreading to the people who live near it, losing potency as it goes until finally it reaches
the sea.”
    “I’ve seen stories about magic coming from the forest, but does it really?” Freddy asked.
    “The stories are true.” Sebastian pointed at Freddy with a pencil. “Magic comes from the great tree called Yggdrasil.” He flourished the pencil along with the name.
“Every year the Norns would bring water from the river Urobrun to water the roots of Yggdrasil, and in return, magic would flow out of the tree and to the people.”
    Yggdrasil. That name stirred the ghost of a memory within her.
    Home,
whispered a voice inside her. Nan remembered the wind whispering through the dense green leaves, felt the rough texture of the bark beneath her fingers. Then she shook her head,
trying to dispel the thought. She was a city girl who had never even seen a forest. A tree? Her home definitely wasn’t a tree.
    “Do you remember it at all?” Sebastian asked.
    “No,” she lied.
    “That may be because of the tragedy. Someone killed you and your other sister, in your previous lives.”
    Every word he spoke stirred fresh images. Two women: one dark-haired and serious, the other just a young girl.
My sisters
. It didn’t seem possible that she could have family,
stretching across more than one life, when she had grown up feeling so alone.
    “Ingrid was the only Norn left to protect Yggdrasil,” Sebastian continued. “One night the tree was felled by men from Urobrun. They even dug up the roots. This pivotal moment
helped lead to the war. Ingrid worried the destruction of the tree would disrupt your memories.”
    “So the Urobrunians destroyed the tree…in order to destroy magic?” Nan asked.
    “Exactly.”
    “But it obviously didn’t work,” Freddy said. “Magic isn’t gone.”
    “Ingrid planted a new tree from seeds she had saved. But it hasn’t been the same since. Children are rarely born with magic now.” He looked at Nan again. “The main
revolutionary force in the city wanted to free the workers and overthrow the Chancellor in favor of a fair and open government. But we—the Hands of the White Tree—look past that. The
people of Urobrun can say they don’t need magic and call the people of Irminau backward rustics—but this country will always be a part of Irminau, with Yggdrasil at its
heart.”
    “You want unification?” Freddy asked.
    “It only makes sense. Each country has different resources. And each is messed up in a different way.”
    “So what about the Norns?” Nan asked. “How do we fit in?”
    “You should all hear the music of fate—the wyrdsong.”
    “The sounds I hear at