“Keller, no standing, you’re taking it easy. What’s going on?”
“Get Ottar and Lara. Now.”
Sensing my urgency, Lilly sets her soup down as well and vacates to the kitchen as I reach for my notebook that’s on the coffee table, thankfully untouched by my vomiting episode this morning. I flip it open just as Ottar, Lara, and Lilly come into the living room.
“What’s going on?” Ottar says.
I review my notes, my mind swirling over the Birch Forest, the accents, the prospective names. It fucking hits me like a ton of bricks. Slowly, I look up at Ottar and say, “It’s Rolant.”
“What’s Rolant?” Ottar asks.
“Who’s Rolant?” Lilly adds.
“The person behind this. It’s Rolant,” I answer. “It was his voice.”
“Wait, is there another Rolant other than my uncle?” Lilly continues.
“You think it’s Lilly’s uncle, right?” Lara says as she takes a seat.
“Wait . . . you think my uncle, Theo’s grown-ass child, the one who got exiled for drunkenly rolling on the thousand-year-old moss, you think he’s the one behind this?”
“I don’t think,” I say slowly. “I know.”
“Okay, walk us through it,” Ottar says as he takes a seat on the coffee table.
“Wait, I don’t want to make his head worse,” Lilly says while sitting right next to me and placing her hand on my thigh.
“I’m fine,” I say, lacing my hand with hers. “I promise. I need to get this out now.”
Her concerned eyes connect with mine, but she just nods, giving me the go-ahead.
“The first time I heard his voice, I knew it was familiar, but I couldn’t place it, and the more and more I heard it, it drove me nuts. The peon who was helping him, it was obvious he was from Arkham in the way he spoke, but the other two . . .” And then it dawns on me. “Jesus, fuck.”
“What?” Ottar asks.
“There were two of them. Rolant and . . . and the other had to be Sveinn. They sounded very similar, and now that I’m piecing it together, I can almost count on it.”
“Sveinn?” Lilly asks. “I thought he was lost at sea.”
“Must have found his way to Arkham,” Lara says. “But what would they want with Torskethorpe? I can understand Rolant wanting vengeance, but why wouldn’t Sveinn just come back and claim his title?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t he come back and claim the title?” Lilly says.
“Rolant could have convinced him not to,” I say as I glance down at my notebook. “They mentioned something about Birch Forest. Taking that over. And if Sveinn claimed his title, he wouldn’t be able to do anything with Birch Forest. But if Arkham takes over . . .”
“Why would Arkham want Birch Forest?” Ottar asks.
“Isn’t that where the hundred-year-old moss is?” Lilly asks.
I nod. “Yes, acres and acres of it.”
Lilly’s lips twist to the side. “Can’t moss be used for electricity?”
“What?” Lara asks. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“Me neither,” I say.
“Hold on, someone give me a phone.” Lilly holds out her hand, and Ottar gives her his phone. She types something into the search bar and then pauses to read before saying, “Yup, there are early studies that moss can be used to generate energy during photosynthesis, it creates surplus electrons. It’s still at the early stages of testing, but with the quantity of moss Torskethorpe has, I wouldn’t put it past them to want to harness the wealth behind that.”
