Honestly, Matteo and Tara held up better than most people would when coming to Sólstaður. Matteo barely seemed bothered and Tara, while clearly scared, wasn’t so shaken up she couldn’t move. They fared better than Hannah had, anyway.

It was easy to pick out her house among the rest near the edge of town; a little ways down from the tavern, Lykke had the windows and door decorated with fake flowers. It made it colorful when compared to the gray houses and white snow.

Hannah went up to the front door and knocked. Lykke slightly opened the door after a minute.

“You’re early,” she noted, pushing the door the rest of the way. She gestured towards Matteo and Tara. “What’s with the kids?”

“I picked up a new job from Dakari,” Hannah explained. “It’s a bit urgent so I had to bring them back with me.”

Lykke cast her a quizzical look, but nonetheless stepped aside so they could come in. Hannah immediately shed her jacket and took off her coat; following her example, so did Matteo and Tara. Lykke went ahead to the main room, with Hannah joining her after a second.

“Have you eaten yet?” Hannah asked her partner, who poked the fire and sat down on the floor with some paper scraps and a picture frame.

“I lost track of time, but I’ve been eating the random snacks you bring back. Did you get any more, by the way?”

“Someone’ll bring it over once they make sure I didn’t smuggle anything in.” Hannah sat down in one of the actual chairs, gesturing for Matteo and Tara—both of which waited by the entrance for permission—to come over. “You can make yourselves at home. Drop off your stuff there and we’ll find a better place for it later.”

They both murmured some kind of agreement, Matteo’s more audible than his sister’s, and went further in. They exchanged some kind of quiet discussion over which one would take the remaining chair, the ultimate decision being Matteo with Tara sitting down next to it to draw, facing away from the others.

Hannah leaned back and let herself unwind, watching the fire glow and flicker in the center of the room. Lykke didn’t take too long to entertain conversation, still focusing on her crafting but speaking to the guests.

“So—what do two Dakari kids have to do here in winter? That you managed to convince Hannah of, no less?”

“We’re doing something for Tara’s parents,” Matteo explained.

“Okay. That leaves my second question unanswered, though.”

Lykke looked at Hannah, meaning it was her cue to speak up. She opened her mouth to start, then paused to think of a good way to phrase it.

“You know that girl I dated in Dakari? Rene Horize?”

Her partner gave her a skeptical look—or rather, gave her paper scraps and picture frame a skeptical look. She wasn’t usually one for eye contact.

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“Yeah. What about her?”

“I ran into her while I was in Eyset. These are her kids.”

Lykke glanced up at Matteo and Tara, despite only being able to see the former. After a second, she sighed and gave her attention to Hannah.

“What are your plans?” She switched to Sólstaður’s tongue a bit disdainfully. “I assume ‘stay home and actually relax for once like you promised’ is off the table.”

“I need an income to relax,” Hannah argued lightly. “And Rene said she would pay if the kids came back.”

Lykke shook her head and returned to her papers and frame, probably disappointed but understanding. They could talk it over more when there weren’t two strangers in the room; Hannah was honestly lucky Lykke still put up with her. A lot of others didn’t.

Hannah looked over at Matteo, who at least had the manners to take out a book to read while the other two talked.

“That being said”—he turned towards her when she went back to the language he actually understood—“do you two know where you need to be?”

Matteo glanced at his sister, then back at Hannah. “It doesn’t look like it. Our only source of intel is…a little finicky. But what we’re looking for might not be there after a few months.”

“Do you have a general goal or direction, then?”

“Are they any outstanding legends or stories?” Matteo asked. “That’s really all we can go off of.”

“There are a few,” Lykke mused, apparently not annoyed enough to stay silent. She shuffled through her paper scraps and flicked a few into the fire. “One specific to the port is a sailor’s tale of one storm that stuck a seal on the shore, but when opportunistic fishermen tried to kill it a girl’s voice cried out. It distracted them long enough for it to get itself back into the sea. The next morning, when the fishermen went out, they were all drowned by the same seal they tried to kill.”

“Every now and then, you also hear about a kitsune sneaking on board a ship,” Hannah added. “And further north travelers say there are snow-ghosts trying to kill or seduce them. Sólstaður has a lot of random stories from the first island, mixed in with Dakari or places Sólstaðuric people went to before we got boring.”

“Is there anything that you know didn’t pop up until Dakari was created?” Matteo said curiously. “Preferably something that involves the first island too?”

Hannah drew a blank, and Lykke paused her crafting so she could think. After a minute, she nodded.

“There’s a village northeast of here with some first island history,” Lykke said. She glanced at Hannah. “We went there once, remember? There’s a memorial for a few ships that sank on their way here back when the first island fell. It’s all in first island text. They say it appeared out of nowhere.”

It took a second, but Hannah could recall. “The locals said it’s the only record of those names—everyone who died had family, but they weren’t the ones to put it there. It just…appeared one day, allegedly.”

Hidden from view, a tiny murmur came from Tara’s direction; her brother cast her a concerned look, returned with another whisper Hannah couldn’t make out. Matteo spoke up in her stead, looking at Hannah again.

“That might help,” he said. “Are we staying here, or heading somewhere else?”

Hannah glanced at Lykke for input, then back at Matteo to answer, “It’s nothing fancy, but we have some spare mattresses lying around I can pull into the spare room. Might as well let you stay the night, since you’re already here.”

“Thank you. I can help you get them out?”

“If you really want to, kid.”

She stood up, and so did Matteo. Taking the long way around so they didn’t disturb Lykke, he helped her take out whatever the siblings would need for a reasonable night’s sleep.