The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  I woke up from a nightmare I couldn’t remember, but I was gasping and sweating, and it took a minute to shake the feeling that spiders were crawling all over me.

  But when I realized I was safe in Bryn’s office, bathed in morning light, I took a deep breath, and I got up to open the window. I pulled over the desk chair so I could sit right in front of it and let the cool summer breeze blow over me. It also let in the stench of the city, mostly the horse manure this close to the palace stables, but the air felt good, cooling the drying sweat on my skin.

  The thing about Bryn’s apartment was that the walls were very thin, but that wasn’t surprising. The complex was kingdom housing, similar to the tacky addition on the Mimirin, made for government employees. The biggest difference was that this was new and modern, because the old one had been destroyed in the war. At the Mimirin it was mostly docents and intellects, but here it was all guards and trackers.

  From the other room, I heard Bryn and Ridley talking—her quieter but firm and calm, him a bit louder, anxious, uncertain.

  “I’m not telling you not to do this,” Ridley was saying. “But you are talking about using part of your savings on something really spur of the moment.”

  “I know, but this is important to me,” Bryn replied evenly. “I have to know who I really am.”

  “But Bryn, you do know who you are,” he argued. “You’ve always known. You’re the most bullheaded troll I’ve ever met, and that’s not changing if you’re Kanin or Trylle or human, for Odin’s sake.”

  “Really? You really believe it wouldn’t change anything if I was human?”

  He was silent, then mumbled something I couldn’t hear, then louder, “… but that’s not okay. You shouldn’t lose your job.”

  “But I would, and we both know it,” Bryn said.

  “Do you think Indu is human?”

  “Ulla doesn’t know for sure. She thought maybe Omte or álfar.”

  “So he could still be Kanin? Or human?” Ridley asked, and Bryn didn’t make an audible response. “Then maybe it’s better you don’t know. Right now everyone believes you are Skojare and Kanin—and you really might be. You’ve worked so hard to be accepted as you are. Why change that perception?”

  “Because it’s not the truth. I won’t live a lie, even a beneficial one.”

  “But I don’t know why it has to have any bearing on you,” he persisted. “Iver still raised you. You still grew up completely enmeshed in the Doldastam culture. Hell, you led the rebellion that saved the damn kingdom. You are Kanin, no matter what your blood says.”

  Her voice was thick when she said, “It’s not about that.”

  “Then what is it?” Ridley asked.

  “Our abilities are passed through our blood,” she reminded him gently. “You can change the color of your skin because your father could, and I’m drawn to the water because of my mother. Indu has been going around impregnating as many women as he can because he thought it was important to pass something along. If he is my father, I need to know what’s in the blood he gave me.”

  17

  By the Sea

  Over breakfast, Bryn told me her plan, which she’d apparently been working on throughout the night instead of sleeping. She’d gotten time off from work, arranged for fake passports from the Kanin rectory, and bought plane tickets for the two of us.

  I protested about the expense, because it was a lot more than a train, and I couldn’t afford to pay her back right now. She just shook her head and told me she did it for herself.

  “We can get the train in two days and waste the next four to five days traveling, or we can fly out of Churchill in a few hours, and with a couple stops, we can be in Merellä by the morning,” she explained.

  After we finished eating, I got dressed and packed up my stuff. Ridley had been around during breakfast, sipping tea and not saying much, but things didn’t seem tense exactly. When I came out of the office, they were kissing and talking softly to each other.

  He helped carry our bags down to the vehicle, and drove us to the airport. He and Bryn held hands. Watching the two of them together like that made me miss Pan, and a rush of excitement washed over me.

  It didn’t really hit me until just then. Within twenty-four hours, I’d be back in Merellä, back within arm’s reach of Pan. I still had no idea what the future might hold for us, or where my feet were going to land. But I knew that I really liked Pan, and I couldn’t wait to see him again.

  The realization did not help with the travel. Hours sitting on a tiny plane didn’t ease my anticipation. Being around so many humans always made me anxious. They always wore too much cologne—I don’t know why they were so hung up on dumping alcohol and oils over themselves, but it always made me sneeze.

  That was annoying, but it wasn’t the source of my anxiety. Humans could be so quick to turn on each other, but I’d read enough history to know that they had a tendency to use violence when they encountered something new and strange. On top of that, airports had become sort of battlegrounds for humans, with security everywhere, looking for anything that didn’t belong.

  And I didn’t belong.

  Bryn had been a tracker before she joined the guard, so she was far more used to moving seamlessly among the humans. It also helped that she was more ordinary-looking than me. She was prettier, really, but I meant that her eyes matched each other.

  As we made our way through the airport in Winnipeg to catch the next flight, I wondered how I’d gotten on the plane in Sweden, after Indu had held me hostage. How had I gotten through? Who had taken me to the airport and bought the ticket?

  Indu had to know his way around, with all his traveling between human cities. Isarna on the island in the Swedish Bay of Bothnia, Doldastam in the Canadian subarctic, and Fulaträsk in the southern swamps of the United States. All of that was costly, and it required an understanding of human customs and laws across multiple countries.

  That was the kind of thing that a tracker like Bryn would know. They had to be well versed in all parts of the human world to go among them and gather up the changelings—and their trust funds. Most changelings were left with families in relative proximity to their kingdom, but we couldn’t exactly stop the hosts from moving whenever they wanted. Bryn had gone to Chicago, Seattle, Montreal, Atlanta, and she knew of others that went to London, Tokyo, and Dubai.

  But that kind of travel, with the right documents, and the appropriate training for a sheltered teenage troll to blend into the cosmopolitan human world, was costly and time-consuming. The kingdoms sent young trolls to school to learn human etiquette, defense, and persuasion techniques.

  How could an isolated tribe like the Älvolk have the money and know-how to do that, when they had no changelings or trackers?

  It was late when we finally landed in Oregon. Bryn had to rent a car so we could drive to where Merellä is hidden along the coast. I could not wait to get there and take something for my throbbing headache, since I didn’t know how human medications would work on a troll.

  At some point, when we’d been in the air, the song had come back again. The baritone a capella singing of enn morgana fjeurn on ennsommora orn—the morning flower and the summer bird.

  It began quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the passenger snoring beside me. But as we traveled, it had gotten louder and louder. Even in the car, when Bryn had the radio on, it was still there, looping through my head.

  grotta insa ihkku / anda cieri insa saddjavvi

  she wept all through the night / until her tears became a lake

  I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, resting my head against the window, but it was like a thunderous drum echoing through my brain.

  lindanna fjeura blommid anyo / enndast efdar deen orn varrid torrid

  linden flowers bloomed anew / only after the bird bled dry

  Then finally, mercifully, the music started to subside, and I opened my eyes.

  We drove along the coast, the moon illuminating the ocean cr
ashing against the cliffs to our right, and a dense forest to our left. In front of us was nothing but a long, empty stretch of road. But then the air shimmered, and the mirage shifted into the night until the silhouette of the citadel slowly took shape.

  The Mimirin was in the center of town, and even from this far away, it towered over everything. It looked like something from a gothic fairy tale, especially as we drew closer.

  Bryn drove along the wall until we got to the large gate of wood and iron. Guard towers were on either side, and a guard came to meet us before opening the gates. Bryn flashed her credentials—her real ones, since a King’s personal guard garnered immediate respect, even one from another tribe.

  He waved us in, and we made our way down the dirt roads. The song fell silent in my head as small houses closed in around us. The Mimirin institution loomed over the city, and I leaned forward, looking up at the thirteen atriums that lined the top of the building.

  The full moon shined brightly through them, making the Ögonen’s semi-transparent ochre skin glow in the darkness. They were much too far away to see their eyes from here, but I had no doubt that they saw us, that they were watching us with their trollian eyes.

  I told Bryn where to go, and the carriage house finally came into view. The apartment I shared with Dagny was on the second floor. Bryn parked in the narrow gravel spot underneath the stairs, and we grabbed our bags and went up the steps to our rustic little place. I’d called ahead to make sure it was okay with Dagny that we stayed here.

  “It’s still your place,” she’d said simply. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

  Since it was so late, I used my key instead of knocking, but Dagny was waiting up for us. Or at least she’d tried to. She was sitting on the couch, her head sagging to the side, a dog-eared copy of Recovering Memories in the Troll Brain on her lap.

  Her long black hair was pulled back in a braid, and when she looked up at us, blinking groggily, I noticed the eyebrow above her left eye—one half was burned off, leaving a jagged ruddy pink mark in its stead.

  “You’re back with another houseguest,” she said with a yawn.

  I dropped my bag on the floor and stopped short. “When we talked on the phone, I told you about Bryn.”

  “I know, Ulla.” She smiled as she stood up. “I’m only joshing you.”

  I hugged her. “It’s good to see you, Dag.”

  18

  Lyrical

  “Are you ready to face the pain this time?” Elof Dómari asked with a wink. The last time he drew my blood I had nearly fainted, but that had been a long time ago.

  I smiled down at him. “Yeah. I made sure to eat before we came here.”

  “I made them both eat a big breakfast,” Dagny said over her shoulder as she walked across the troglecology lab to get the equipment for the blood draw.

  The lab was Elof’s domain, as the esteemed docent from the Vittra kingdom. His main interest was blood—finding out as much as it could tell him about ourselves, our abilities, our ancestry. Trolls have always known that we had supernatural powers that humans could only dream of, but it was only recently that we started looking into why.

  Some trolls were afraid of the science behind it, since humans were the ones that mastered it first. Others feared what they might find, or that it was going against “troll ways.” Fortunately, trolls like Elof relentlessly pursued the truth, and they convinced the Vittra-controlled Merellä to join the human world in the twenty-first century.

  That made Elof’s sleek lab on the third floor of the Mimirin the best place within the troll kingdoms for Bryn and me to go to check our blood. The labs were a strange juxtaposition of original architecture, including stained-glass windows and barrel-vaulted ceilings, with slick lab equipment and modern islands.

  Dagny had arranged for us to meet with Elof, which wasn’t that hard because he hadn’t resumed teaching his classes since he’d gotten back. Elof had been with Dagny, Pan, and me when Indu and the Älvolk held us for a month. While we’d been gone, his courses had been on hold, and when the planned trip of a few days stretched on for uncertain weeks, the Information Styrelse had suspended the summer semester.

  Over breakfast, Dagny had told me all about it, but she thought it was for the best. It gave her and Elof plenty of time to work on recovering their memories.

  “Did you remember anything when the Ögonen tried the aural healing on you?” I had asked her, as I sipped lemon tea.

  She shook her head. “Just flashes of the cell they held us in. Nothing more.”

  “And you haven’t heard anything from Eliana?” I asked.

  She arched her eyebrow—the one still healing—and winced slightly. “Have you?”

  “No. I was just hoping.”

  “I’m worried about her too,” Dagny said finally. “But she’s resilient.”

  Dagny was Elof’s lab assistant, and they had gone back to working on the genealogical testing of the Inhemsk Project. While they had been gone, another docent and a Mästare had taken over testing the blood and comparing DNA.

  “Are you ready for this?” Dagny asked as she laid her blood-drawing kit out on the counter beside me.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I was sitting on the stool, trying to pretend that I wasn’t scared by the sight of the monstrous needle. Honestly, I would’ve classified it as a small metal tube. Needles were thin, petite, less aggressive.

  Bryn was watching me with an amused gaze. When Dagny put on her gloves, snapping the latex against her wrist, I flinched, and Bryn laughed.

  “I didn’t know you were afraid of needles,” she said.

  I bristled. “I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t like them.”

  Dagny continued the process—tying a tourniquet around my arm, and then probing with her fingers, looking for a good vein. Her brow furrowed as she searched, touching all down my inner arm.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Not exactly.” She frowned. “Your skin feels … thicker. I think you have some type of scar tissue building up. They must’ve taken a lot of blood from you.”

  “Is it safe to take more?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll be fine.” Dagny must’ve found a vein she liked, because she wiped down my skin with a cold alcohol swab. “Just look at Bryn, and if you faint, she’ll catch you.”

  I took a deep breath and looked over at Bryn. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, and gave me a thin, encouraging smile.

  “If you need a distraction, you should try singing that song that you’ve been going on about,” Bryn suggested.

  “It’s finally out of my head, and now you wanna bring it back?” I cringed.

  She shrugged. “It distracts you.”

  “What song are you talking about?” Elof perked up. He sat across the island from me, resting his arms on the dark marble.

  “She’s had this song in another language stuck in her head for a few days, but it stops when she’s in troll cities, so we think the cloaking magic interferes with it,” Bryn answered for me.

  “For a few days?” Elof tilted his head. “Did anything precede the earworm’s implantation?”

  “It started in a lysa,” I said.

  He looked to Dagny and asked her, “Is that the one you helped Pan with?”

  “Yes, and I already went over it with Ulla, and I didn’t notice anything strange with the lysa,” Dagny said, and picked up the needle. “You’re going to feel a pinch.”

  I quickly looked at Bryn, locking onto her blue eyes, and I recited the translation that had been stuck in my head.

  the linden flower watched the sun

  the bird of gold soared over the meadow

  and in the summer morning light

  the two fell in love

  the flower stretched toward the sky

  and the birds sang her songs all day

  but they never last

  for even the greenest summer

  withers in the longest night

  when
the sky turned dark

  the bird had gone and the flower saw

  she wept all through the night

  until her tears became a lake

  and the flower drowned awaiting the bird’s return

  too late the bird came back

  he plucked the feathers from his breast

  until he bled on the meadows

  linden flowers bloomed anew

  only after the bird bled dry

  over their bodies are the flowers and birds

  singing his mourning song

  the bird and the flower may fall in love

  but they will never share a nest

  the morning flower and the summer bird

  Halfway through my recitation, I felt the needle pierce my skin, and the extra pressure of the effort Dagny had to use to get it through my thicker tissue. But I just inhaled sharply and kept on talking.

  “That’s not particularly catchy,” Elof commented when I’d finished.

  “It sounds better in the original language,” I said.

  “All done,” Dagny announced, and I made the mistake of looking just as she was pulling the needle out.

  I swayed to the side. “Oh, jakla.”

  Bryn immediately grabbed my shoulder to steady me. “Easy.”

  “I’m okay.” I blinked a few times and took another deep breath. “I’m okay,” I repeated once Dagny had wrapped gauze around my arm, and I slowly got to my feet.

  Elof brought me a glass of water, and Dagny finished labeling my samples—vials of my currant-red blood. He noticed me looking, so he put his hand on my arm, steering me away so I wouldn’t make myself sick.

  “What is the original language?” Elof asked.

  “What?” I asked, then shook my head. “Oh, the song. I’m not sure. It sounds like something Old Germanic, like a rough Scandinavian dialect, but more guttural. And it has the harder consonants that remind me of Inuit or Sami.”

  “Interesting.” He leaned back against the short island, resting his elbows on the counter. “Could you sing me a bit? In the original language?”