Once they were far away enough from the hospital that he no longer had to try keeping the ghosts away just by wishing very hard for it, Reynir realized that their departure circumstances meant that his predictions had been right: there were ghosts wherever that Rash cure had been used. But before he could give it any more thought, Lalli was suddenly extremely close to his masked face for someone who preferred avoiding physical contact and speaking Swedish to him:
-Drawing. Ghosts come close. Fire.
-What?
He got a much clearer version of what Lalli was probably trying to tell him from Emil:
-Your damn drawing caught fire in my pocket! Do you realize I have to carry explosives for my work?
That could have become ugly indeed.
-I'm sorry! I didn't know it would do that! I'm still learning!
Well, at least that one was doing something, not like the other ones. His following thought was the realization that from Emil's point of view, a random drawing had spontaneously caught fire in his pocket, yet he had to be accepting the fact to some degree to have just been complaining to Reynir about it. He was probably about to ask him a bunch on questions. That expectation was shot down immediately by Emil simply turning away and making a beeline for the dormitory, where he just collapsed on his bunk. On the other hand, maybe things would have to move slowly with him. Accepting that something had caught fire by magic and telling the person who was responsible as far as he was concerned was one thing. Actually asking questions about it may be a level of acceptance for which Emil wasn't ready yet. Reynir turned his eye to Mikkel. Had he heard any of what Emil or Lalli had said? Apparently not, as he had been busy keeping the papers away from Reynir and Tuuri until he was sure the two of them could come close to them without any risk.
Mikkel told the story in both Icelandic and Danish to make as many people possible aware of the situation. Lalli would have been the only one left out if it wasn't for the fact that he was already taking a nap. The people in that place had found something that cured the Rash, but it had the unexplained side effect of gradual, and irreversible brain death. However, the report made it obvious that they were aware of trolls at the time, even though they weren't called that yet, or named at all. They had made a decision for all the patients: that it was better for them to get that "cure" than to risk turning into a troll. They had manufactured it and sent it to as many treatment centers as they could, not informing caretakers of the side effects. Reynir remembered that letter in the first campsite containing both the cure and the ghosts, which suggested that the caretakers were genuinely expecting the patients to wake up.
They were now only a few days away from their pick up spot, which was a Danish outpost built during the reclamation attempts. The boat meant to pick them up was about to be sent away from Iceland, but it would take at least twenty days for it to reach them. They were considered to have done enough already and suggested to use their waiting time to prepare properly for what was awaiting them once they came back, whatever that ended up being. Just as Torbjörn was telling them this, Reynir noticed Lalli preparing to head out much earlier than usual.
Reynir had felt that the ghosts and trolls that had been following them the whole way were getting closer every day, but he hadn't realized that they had become that close. Once they has parked the tank in a field that left an open line of fire, Reynir informed Onni and Hildur via dreamspace, in case they were able to help. Lalli then dragged him outside and asked him to draw his newest rune outside the tank. He also made a few runes to keep trolls away, but wasn't able to make them completely surround the tank before he literally bumped into Mikkel, who was not happy seeing him outside at all. Reynir considered himself lucky to not have been noticed in such a long time, when he heard Emil whispering to him as Mikkel was dragging him inside:
-Couldn't distract him forever, sorry.
So Emil accepted what had happened earlier in the day enough to realize that he shouldn't be interrupted while drawing runes. The fact that Mikkel was currently pushing him into the dormitory told him what a difference even that level of understanding could make. Fortunately, one of the first things Reynir had done with the anti-troll runes taught to him by Hildur had been to draw a few on the dormitory’s walls. He had even managed to paint a large version of the most powerful one on the floor. He and Tuuri, who was sitting on Emil's bunk, were going to be safe in there.
Hildur almost finished the job that the children had started on her hair when she realized how little she was going to able to do to help. When Onni had said that he was going to need a completely empty room, she had helped him and Bjarni clear a place that was really a storage closet, and hence didn't contain any furniture that wasn't intended to be easy to move. What Onni was going to try was going to put such a strain on his body that he was going to be out for several days, and Hildur was to be the one to provide long-distance assistance to the crew if it turned out to be needed in the meantime. Her more immediate task was to keep Siv and the children away from the room, and get him in bed once he collapsed. Why did that horde have to catch up with them today, of all days? Was their discovery, or rather lack of it, going to be overshadowed by her father getting proven right just a few hours later? She'd give anything for this to not happen. Anything.
