The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

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  1

  In the Air

  Every night, I dream of an endless sky the color of a summer grapefruit, luminous and bright thanks to the three suns, and every morning, I wake up in a dank prison cell. I opened my eyes, expecting the same dark stone ceiling barely six feet above me, the same way I had for the past … alai, how long had it been?

  But as I blinked my eyes, adjusting to the bright sunlight, and I saw the rows of people in navy blue seats, confusion and adrenaline surged through me like a nauseating electricity. I wasn’t in a prison cell in … wherever I’d been.

  I reached over the passenger beside me, an old woman who snorted in irritation as I pushed open the tiny window shade. Below us was nothing but the vast blue ocean.

  “We don’t reach land for another three hours,” she said huffily, and I muttered a thanks before closing the shade and leaning back in my seat.

  In the back of the seat in front of me, a rumpled plane ticket had been shoved into the pocket, and I pulled it out. The name Emily Miller on top was the name I traveled under, with the fake documents that the Mimirin provided. The flight was going to Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was some relief because at least I was going home.

  But how the hell had I gotten here?

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the last thing I remembered. There were flashes of things, foggy images of a prison cell. And a young woman—pale with cobalt and white makeup painted across her eyes in thick lines like war paint—glaring at me with anger darkening her face. And an albino woolly elk, and a haunting choir singing about a morning flower.

  Those were all vague and disconnected from each other, more impressions than true memories. I could remember fear but not what I had been afraid of.

  The last thing I clearly remembered was … kissing Pan. In a hotel room, on the island city of Isarna.

  So I kissed him, and I felt his restraint crumble. His hand was on my side, pressing into the soft flesh beneath my shirt, and he pushed me against the window. I wrapped my arms around him, kissing him deeply.

  And then someone had interrupted. Had it been Dagny? Or was it Noomi?

  Noomi. My half-sister.

  My stomach rolled. She’d been so angry, but I couldn’t remember why.

  Everything until Isarna I could still remember clearly. The four of us—my flatmate Dagny Kasten, her professor Elof Dómari, head researcher Pan Soriano, and myself—had gone to Sweden as ambassadors for the Mimirin—a respected troll library and institution of higher learning. We were on a mission to find the First City, my missing amnesiac friend Eliana, and my father. We had gotten so close.

  But then it all disappeared into nothing. I couldn’t make sense of the glimpses I remembered.

  I sat up straighter in my seat and looked around the cabin of the plane. I hadn’t gone to Isarna alone. When I tried to stand up, the seat belt pinched at my waist, so I unbuckled it and stood up too fast and banged my head on the overhead bin.

  The man in the aisle seat got up, mistakenly thinking I was heading to the bathroom. But since he suggested it, it sounded like a good idea. The plane ticket was still balled up in my hand, and I surveyed the passengers as I walked down the aisle but didn’t recognize any of them.

  In the tiny mirror above the even tinier sink, I saw my reflection for the first time in … in I had no idea how long. Above my left eye, the larger of my eyes, was a fresh bluish splotch of a bruise, but my face was pale and sallow. My tangles of dirty blond hair were pulled up in an especially messy bun.

  And I finally looked down at the outfit I had on. A large gray sweater featuring a smiling cartoon moose under the phrase Glad Älg, two sizes too big for me, and indigo linen pants that were uncomfortably snug in the thighs and hips. These clothes weren’t mine.

  I leaned back against the door and uncrumpled the ticket, looking for more clues about what was happening. The destination was the airport in Minnesota, which could explain why Pan, Dagny, and Elof weren’t on the same flight as me. They were probably going to Oregon, back to the Mimirin.

  But why wasn’t I going back to the Mimirin too? Förening in Minnesota was my home, basically, where I’d lived before I left for my internship in June. But I had been renting an apartment in Merellä since then, and all my things were there.

  Had I been kicked out of the Mimirin institution, or even the city of Merellä? And if I was, what of everyone else? Had Pan been sent to Ottawa, Elof to Ondarike, Dagny to Ningrava?

  Then I finally noticed the date at the top of the ticket. 8 AUGUST 2019.

  That couldn’t be right. We flew out of the States on the Fourth of July. I remembered watching the fireworks from the plane, and I could only account for a few days after that. That meant I was missing weeks.

  A month of my life was just … gone.

  I put my hand over my mouth to hold back the frightened sob that wanted to escape. I squeezed my eyes—

  My mind instantly went to Pan, lying in a dark room, blood all over the floor. He gave me a hazy smile and told me, “I would follow you anywhere, and it’s worth whatever risk there is.”

  —then I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. Freaking out in a cramped airplane bathroom wouldn’t help me or anyone else, no matter how badly I wanted to.

  I splashed cold water on my face, and when I left the bathroom, I went straight to find a flight attendant.

  She was a middle-aged woman with dyed bright red hair and kind eyes, and her name tag said Kirsten. She listened politely and answered my questions, even when they bordered on the ridiculous. Like “What day is it?” and “Are you sure that’s the correct date?”

  When I asked, “Did you see me get on the plane with anyone else?” that’s when her expression changed to concern.

  “Are you in trouble?” she asked me quietly, her kind eyes studying me. “Did you board the plane against your will?”

  Maybe. Probably. I have no idea.

  “Um, no.” I shook my head and forced a smile. The last thing I needed was a human police force getting involved, especially with their highly sensitive airport security. “Just really jet-lagged.” I laughed, a brittle sound that didn’t help at all. “Can I get a ginger ale?”

  She sent me back to my seat with a plastic cup of soda, and she kept an eye on me the rest of the flight. I sipped the soda, ignoring the queasy feeling it gave me in my stomach. When Kirsten the flight attendant was busy elsewhere, I slid out of the seat and checked my overhead bin for my duffel bag, but it was empty of any recognizable luggage.

  I hadn’t been able to find anything around the seat, besides the crumpled ticket, and I had my fake “Emily Miller” passport in my pocket. That was all I had on me. I was traveling across the ocean with no cell phone, no money, no one I knew, nothing. And I had no idea what was waiting for me on the other side.

  2

  Hostage

  The hyper-surveillance in airports made me uneasy, so I wanted to
get out of there as fast as possible. But I couldn’t give up on the hope that there was something waiting for me in baggage claim.

  As I waited, I chewed my lip and tried to come up with a plan if I was stranded alone in a large human metropolis. Then, as I tried to remember if pay phones were still a thing in the human world, I heard a familiar voice saying my name.

  I turned around to see Finn Holmes standing there, and I was so relieved I burst into tears. I ran over to him and threw my arms around his neck, and he hugged me back.

  “You’re home now, Ulla,” he reassured me in his warm, rumbling voice.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when I finally released him, and I wiped at my eyes with the long sleeves of my sweatshirt.

  His eyebrows pinched together, and his eyes filled with concerned confusion. “You asked me to pick you up here. We spoke on the phone a few days ago.”

  “What?” I shook my head in dismay.

  “We were negotiating your release for weeks.” Finn put his hands on my shoulders, warm and comforting, and he bent slightly so he could look me in the eye. “You were held hostage by the Älvolk.”

  Fresh tears sprang into my eyes. “I don’t—”

  —an image flashed in my mind: Noomi glaring down at me, and a tall man looming behind her.

  A painful bolt of lightning shot through my brain, and the image dissolved to Eliana. She wore a long white dress and stood in front of a raging waterfall—

  “I don’t remember,” I stammered. “It’s only bits and pieces. I don’t know where I’ve been for the past month.”

  “Okay, it’s okay.” Finn put his arm around me. “We’ll figure this out together. The important thing is that you’re home now.”

  The baggage carousel let out an angry alarm announcing the incoming luggage, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. A moment later, my battered old duffel bag tumbled out on the conveyor belt, and I ran to grab it, as if someone else would run and snatch it before I had the chance.

  Even though I really wanted to open my bag and dig through it right then and there, to see what of my possessions I still had, it didn’t seem like a good idea around so many humans.

  I didn’t even really feel comfortable being around them at all, so I grabbed my bag and followed Finn out to his car without really saying much. I sat stoically in the passenger side of the Jeep until we were out of the airport completely, and on an open stretch of highway.

  “What about my friends?” I asked finally. “Were they released too?”

  “It’s my understanding that Dagny Kasten, Elof Dómari, and Panuk Soriano were released back to the Mimirin at the same time you were released back to Förening,” Finn said.

  I let out a sigh of relief and rested my head back against the seat rest. “How come I’m here and not in Merellä?”

  “It was a condition of your release,” he explained. “You were not to return to the Mimirin.”

  I looked sharply at him. “What? Why not?” I suddenly flashed on Noomi, glowering at me, and Indu, his weathered face and unrelenting smirk. “Who made the demands?”

  “Wendy did most of the negotiating,” he said, referring to the Trylle Queen and his friend. “Along with the head of the Mimirin, the Korva, Ragnall Jerrick.”

  I’d met with Ragnall once, shortly before we’d left for Sweden. I had wanted to go to find Eliana and my father, but the Mimirin officials had gotten excited about the potential. I had formed relationships with Eliana, Jem-Kruk, and my father, Indu Mattison, who all had ties to the First City and the Älvolk that resided within. Because of this, Mästare Amalie had appointed us ambassadors to visit the First City and find out all that we could about the secretive kingdom.

  Not that I had any place to complain. If Ragnall and Amalie hadn’t taken an interest in our trip, we never would’ve been able to go. The Mimirin funded the entire trip, with Amalie calling it an expedition for our heritage.

  “But who did they negotiate with?” I pressed.

  Finn had one hand on the steering wheel, and he kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. “I know they were in contact with Patrik Boden. He’s the one in direct contact with the Älvolk leaders.”

  Patrik was the Markis Ansvarig in Isarna, the troll island where we’d been staying while we looked for Áibmoráigi, the First City. We’d only been there a few days when—

  —the memories cut to black. I remembered being at the Isarna city hall, admiring their collection of artifacts, and Patrik had been explaining things. But then it was like the world stopped mid-sentence. It was all black, and my head throbbed painfully when I tried to remember more.

  “Who were the Älvolk leaders?” I asked Finn, and rubbed my temple in a vain attempt to relieve my growing headache. “Was it Indu? Indu Mattison?”

  I could see his face—weathered olive skin, black hair going silver at the temples, dark eyes scrutinizing me, and his constant smirk. And then it was gone.

  I could hardly remember the face of my father.

  “I don’t know,” Finn said.

  “What about Noomi Indudottir?” I closed my eyes, trying to remember the other name. There had been someone else, another girl with jet-black hair and paint across her eyes. “Tuva? Did you hear anything about Noomi or Tuva?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I heard their names.”

  “How did you know the Älvolk had me? Like, how did anybody find out we were in trouble?”

  “The docent with you, Professor Elof Dómari, set up a dead man’s switch,” Finn explained. “He’d instructed Patrik to contact the Mimirin if they didn’t hear from you within seventy-two hours. When that time passed, Patrik contacted Ragnall, and then Ragnall called Wendy. They began the negotiations, and Wendy let me know what was going on.”

  “So the negotiations lasted nearly a month?” I asked.

  “It is my understanding that the Älvolk were difficult to reach and changed their demands several times, and that really prolonged the process,” Finn said. “But we wanted you home as soon as possible.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m just … missing a whole month of my life.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Finn asked carefully.

  A series of hazy images ran through my mind—the city hall in Isarna with a jeweled fox skeleton on display, kissing Pan in the hotel room, and Noomi watching me as an all-girls’ choir sang a haunting hymn in a language I didn’t completely understand.

  “The last thing I remember clearly is arriving in Isarna.” I shook my head. “Then it’s all a blur.”

  “When we get back to Förening, I’ll get in touch with the healers I know,” Finn said, keeping his voice hard, to hide the worry underneath. “I already let them know that you might need them today. I wasn’t sure what condition you’d be in. There might be a way that they could bring your memories back.”

  I unbuckled my seat belt so I could reach into the back seat and open my bag. It was too big to haul into the front, not without impacting Finn’s ability to drive, so I started rummaging through it.

  “Ulla, you can’t hang over the seat like that,” he told me firmly. “It’s not safe.”

  So naturally, I clambered back, practically falling on my head and kicking the ceiling before I managed to safely right myself.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he muttered, then louder, “Put your seat belt on.”

  I did, then immediately returned to my search of the bag. It was mostly full of my dirty clothes, and they were actually mine, unlike the ill-fitting outfit I’d woken up in on the plane. Why had I been in that when I had plenty of my own stuff?

  And then I felt it. The thin, cold rectangle of my cell phone. I made an excited squawk. It was dead but my charger was tangled in a bralette. Once I got it separated, Finn plugged my phone into the dash to charge.

  While I waited for that, I went back to rummaging through my things. At the very bottom of the bag, I found a book. Jem-Kruk and the Adlrivellir. I flipped through i
t, but the book fell open to the last page.

  And there, in my own handwriting, I’d scrawled important messages to myself.

  Senka is your mother, Indu is your father

  Don’t Trust Noomi or Illaria

  They’re Your Sisters but they LIE

  Áibmoráigi is on the northwest mountain beyond Lake Sodalen

  The Lady in the Long White Dress is a waterfall

  Find the waterfall, find Eliana

  Jem-Kruk might be a liar

  You and Pan kissed (and you both liked it)

  Johan (Hanna’s grandfather) knows the truth about Senka & Jem-Kruk

  And then below all that, in big angry letters:

  IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BLOOD!

  3

  Return

  The Jeep had hardly rolled to a stop, and I heard Hanna scream as she rushed out the front door. The younger kids followed close behind her—seven-year-old Liam, four-and-a-half-year-old Emma, and three-year-old Niko toddling after—all of them running up the grassy embankment to greet me.

  As the kids descended upon me—Emma jumped, boldly but correctly assuming I’d catch her—Mia came out of the house more slowly, because she was wrangling the twenty-two-month-old twins. Luna was fussing, pulling at her dark curly pigtails, even with Mia carrying her on her hip, and Lissa held her hand as she took slow, uncertain steps.

  Their house was a large peridot green cottage, surrounded by the big full branches of towering oak, maple, and pine trees, along the thick forest of the bluffs along the Mississippi River. I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful it was here, and how good it felt to be home.

  “What happened? Where have you been? Did you see Eliana?” Hanna peppered me with questions the second she let me go, and the other kids followed suit, lobbing their own barrage of inquiries at me.

  “Were you working? Will you live with us again?” Emma asked, her voice high-pitched and insistent.

  “Why do you look weird? Are you sick? I look weird when I’m sick sometimes,” Liam said knowingly.