The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  “I haven’t done anything really. She must not like anyone asking about her dead relatives,” I said.

  “Or maybe she just doesn’t like anyone,” Bryn muttered.

  “That is a plausible theory,” Elof said, ending his statement with a loud yawn. “You must excuse me. I hate to kick everyone out, but I really wouldn’t mind getting to bed early tonight.”

  I didn’t feel much like hanging out myself. My stomach was still turning, and I went to my room with Bryn. I read some more of the Kendare Blake novel and tried not to catastrophize all the reasons the Omte Queen might not like me. Eventually, I gave up and tried to sleep, hoping that the morning would bring along clarity with it.

  But when I woke up, I felt the same as I had the night before, only now with a backache from the crummy hotel mattress. I had a quiet breakfast in the lobby and then Elof announced it was time to head down to the clinic to get the results. Bryn called Bekk to have her meet us there, and Pan stayed behind, the way Rikky had told him to.

  I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing her either, but she’d always been nice to me. Still, I felt better knowing that Bryn and Elof would be there too. We took the hotel airboat to the clinic, and a nurse in tangerine scrubs took us back to a patient room that had been set aside for us. Bekk arrived a few minutes after we did. Her olive skin was slightly ashen, and her expression was blank.

  Rikky came in after that, but she never even looked at me. She kept her eyes fixed on Elof when she said, “I can take you back to the lab now.”

  Elof went with her to process the results and get the equipment he’d brought with him. That left the three of us—Bryn, Bekk, and myself—in the small patient room, waiting. Bryn paced, walking between the cream-colored walls with increasing urgency.

  After what felt like an eternity, Elof returned with Rikky. She set his heavy machine on the floor. Before she left, I thanked her for all her help, since I didn’t know if I’d see her again, and she mumbled “you’re welcome” before departing.

  Elof hopped up onto the wheeled doctor’s chair and rolled closer to where Bekk and I sat. Bryn finally stopped pacing and stood beside Bekk with her arms folded over her chest.

  “Usually, I give results individually,” Elof said. “But given the unconventional nature of the situation, if it’s all right with you all, I’ll explain it all at once.”

  “Just tell me who my father is,” Bryn blurted out, then added, “please.”

  “Given that Bekk’s baby shares half of her DNA with you, I would say that Indu Mattison is your father,” he said, and she cursed under her breath.

  “Which means he’s not mine,” I said.

  Even though it was as I suspected, the confirmation was less comforting than I thought it would be. Ruling out possible fathers—even psycho ones—wasn’t nearly as satisfying as finding out who my father really was.

  There was obvious relief in finding out a lunatic like Indu wasn’t my father, but seeing the look of horrified resignation on Bryn’s face dampened the mood.

  Bekk looked up at her with a strained, bittersweet smile. “You have sisters now.” She rubbed her belly, but Bryn only nodded once.

  “Are you all right?” Elof asked her gently.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She looked up and blinked, like she’d just woken from a bad dream. “We should probably get out of here. Now that we got our answers. Real patients need the room.”

  “They could spare a few more minutes, if you need it,” Elof said sympathetically.

  She moved toward the door. “Nah, I’m good.”

  There wasn’t much point in sticking around, not with Bryn bolting toward the door. So we all got up to go. I grabbed Elof’s blood machine, since it was so heavy, and we headed out. Elof made sure to thank the front desk nurses for all their help.

  It wasn’t until we got to the airboats tied at the dock that Bryn asked, “Would anybody mind if I went with Bekk to her house? There are some things I’d like to talk about with her.”

  “By all means,” Elof told her.

  Bryn went in Bekk’s boat, and Elof and I got in the hotel’s, and we parted ways. It hurt a little that Bryn hadn’t felt comfortable talking in front of me. But maybe she didn’t want to deal with another set of emotions, when she was so clearly rocked to the core.

  And she probably wanted a quiet conversation with someone who knew her father. Her whole life had been turned upside down. I understood the feeling, and if she needed space from me, I’d be happy to give it to her.

  At the hotel, I went to my room, and Pan showed up at my door a few minutes later. His dark eyes were uncertain, and his hands were in the back pockets of his jeans.

  “Elof told me what happened,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  I held the door wider to let him in. “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah?” He sat down on my bed, rumpled with a T-shirt on it, while Bryn’s bed was made with military precision.

  “I mean, essentially.” I stood beside him and sighed. “I’ve gotten another question answered.” Then I glanced around the room. “So that means we’re done in Fulaträsk.”

  “That’s a good thing, given that the Queen has been watching you,” he said.

  I frowned. “You make it sound so creepy.”

  “It is a little creepy,” he reasoned, and he took my hand, gently caressing the back of it with his thumb. “All I really meant is that it will be nice to get back home.”

  “I don’t know if Merellä is my home.”

  “You have an apartment and friends there … and me there,” he said softly. “That’s home enough for now, isn’t it?”

  “It’s more than enough.” I stepped closer to him, until I was standing between his legs, and I leaned down and kissed him.

  He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him, and the awkward angle caused me to lose my balance, and we both fell onto the bed.

  “Sorry.” I laughed and lay on my side. “I thought that would be romantic.”

  Pan propped himself up on an elbow, and he laughed as he brushed a lock of hair out of my face. “Are you kidding me? Falling into bed with you is always romantic.”

  “What are we doing?” I asked as I looked up into his smoldering dark eyes.

  “You mean right now or in a big-picture kinda way?”

  “Both.”

  He took a deep breath and put his hand on my side. My shirt had ridden up slightly, so his fingers rested on the exposed skin of my hip, and my flesh shivered involuntarily, and a heat fluttered deep in my belly.

  “Right now we’re lying in bed together,” he said. “And I was just thinking about kissing you.”

  “Just thinking about it?” I asked coyly.

  His smile deepened, and he squeezed my side before pulling me close to him. Then his mouth found mine, and he kissed me more fiercely than he usually did (and that thought sent a delicious thrill through me, because there was a way that Pan usually kissed me). It was playful but urgent, the way his hand moved to my lower back, his fingers pressing into my skin.

  Pan pulled away from me, a half smile playing on his lips.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I was just thinking about how much I missed this,” he said, sounding almost wistful. “But then I realized we haven’t actually done much of this at all. I think I missed you before I met you.”

  “Or maybe you just remember all the times we’ve kissed,” I said, and his smile fell away.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t remember much, and the details are very hazy. But when I kissed you yesterday, I knew I’d kissed you a dozen times during the Lost Month. I don’t know how, but we found ways to be together, even in the dungeon.”

  “That doesn’t really surprise me,” he said. “I’m very ingenious and persistent when I’m properly motivated. And I really enjoy kissing you.”

  I kissed him again then, wrapping my arms around him and holding him close to me. We made out like that for a wh
ile, mostly kissing but a bit of talking, though we both steered clear of anything heavy. Really, we were just relishing the time we had together.

  He was lying on his back, telling me about an awkward high school dance, and I had my head on his chest, with his arm around me. Fortunately, we weren’t in a compromising position when Bryn came back.

  “Oh, good, you’re all here,” she said when she saw us. “Mostly.”

  “What’s up?” I asked and sat up, pulling away from Pan. “How’d it go with Bekk?”

  “Good, good.” She brushed her hair back and exhaled deeply. “We’re going to find my other sister.”

  “What other sister?” Pan asked.

  “The one that’s still alive,” Bryn said. “Minoux Moen. She’s nine years old, and she lives in a Skojare village. Bekk and I want to find her and talk to her mom, so we can figure out why she lived, and the others didn’t. Bekk wants to prevent anything bad from happening to her baby, and I want to know what the hell Indu passed on to me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So what happens from here?”

  “Bekk and I are going on to the Skojare village,” Bryn said. “And you guys go back to Merellä to finish your search there. I’ll be in contact with you, and I’ll let you know what I find out. But I don’t think I need to keep you from home any longer.”

  33

  Arrow

  It was at the airport, when my head was pounding, that the song came back in full swing. For the past couple days it had been pleasantly absent, but now the song of the morning flower and the summer bird was on a constant refrain. And it didn’t really help that being around so many humans could make me jumpy.

  It had only been seven hours earlier that Bryn gathered us all together, and we arranged our travel plans out of the Omte kingdom. We’d all gone to the Lafayette airport together, but Bryn and Bekk parted ways from us to head northeast. Everything happened so fast, there was no point in wasting money on a hotel room if we didn’t need to be in Fulaträsk.

  It was me, Pan, and Elof on a layover in Houston. Elof usually tried to make friends with anyone around, but he sprawled out on an airport bench, his carry-on luggage propped under his head like a pillow.

  Pan, meanwhile, had left to find something to eat; his stomach seemed to fare much better with rich human food than mine did, if the way he’d slammed an energy drink earlier was any indication.

  I was exhausted, my head was throbbing, and the song was on a never-ending loop. The human sitting beside me kept bumping me with their elbow, and I was sick of traveling.

  Suddenly, I wanted to cry because I just wanted to go home, even though I didn’t even know where that was. But when I closed my eyes and thought of home, the first thing that came to my mind was the loft bed in my apartment with Dagny. The sunlight through the windows and the open airy loft, with Dag, Pan, and Brueger hanging out on the lumpy couch.

  I thought of my soft old bed and downy comforter, and I wondered if there would be enough room for Pan in the bed with me—

  —but Noomi’s voice cut through my daydream, practically growling as she said, “You’re never going home, Violetta.” She used the name my mother had chosen for me, spitting it out as if it were a slur. “You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere. And once Father’s used you up, I will throw you back in the hole you crawled out from.”

  “I got you an apple and a bottle of water,” Pan was saying, pulling me from my thoughts, and when I opened my eyes, I was surprised to feel tears spilling down my cheeks. “Oh, jeez, Ulla, I can go find you something else?”

  “No, no.” I hastily wiped at my eyes. “That’s fine. I’m just tired and … just really tired.”

  Pan sat down beside me and put his arm around me. “It’s okay. I understand.” I leaned into him then, and the song in my head finally quieted a little. “We’ll be home soon.”

  “Soon” was definitely a subjective thing. It was another nine hours, making it nearly four in the morning when I finally crossed the threshold into my apartment. Dagny was snoring on the couch, and she didn’t wake up to my unlocking the front door a few feet away from her, so I decided to let her sleep. I quietly crept up to my loft, and after changing into my comfiest pajamas, I crawled into bed and fell straight asleep.

  The scent of burning rye toast woke me a couple hours later, and Dagny apologized profusely as she waved the toast in front of the open window.

  “Sorry,” she said as I slowly climbed down the ladder of my loft. “I wanted to have some toast quick and then run off to the archery range before work. I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I poured myself a glass of lemon tea from the pitcher Dagny kept in the fridge. “I slept on the plane last night.”

  “You want a piece of burnt toast slathered in plum preserves?” Dagny asked as she spread purple jam all over the bread.

  “Sure.” I took what she offered and greedily chewed it down, since I hadn’t eaten much yesterday.

  “Since you’re up, you could come with me to the archery range if you want,” Dagny suggested. Her long black hair hung in a braid over her shoulder, and she pushed the sleeves up on her heather-gray sweatshirt. “You could fill me in about your Fulaträsk trip, and I could teach you to properly shoot an arrow. I have to leave for work in an hour, so you could come back after that and nap or whatever.”

  “Yeah, it sounds fun.” I shrugged. “But I’m not getting ready. I’ll brush my teeth and put on a bra, but that’s it.” My hair was in a messy bun and my face was puffy, but I didn’t have the energy to stress about it.

  Ten minutes later, I was walking out the door with Dagny and telling her all about Bryn, Rikky’s fight with Pan, and my weird meeting with Queen Bodil. I even told her about making out with Pan, but I kept the details sparse.

  “So,” Dagny said as we walked into the archery range. “Where do we go from here?”

  “Honestly, I was hoping you’d know, because I’ve got no clue,” I said glumly.

  “Remember, I’m not the only one who offers good advice,” Dagny said. “I’m certain that Elof has something up his sleeve.”

  34

  Morning Flower

  I dozed off on the couch while rereading Jem-Kruk and the Adlrivellir. I’d already read through it three times on the long flights, but I wanted to read it again. Any hint or mention of Jem-Kruk’s friend Senka held such heavy significance now that I knew that Johan might’ve been making real references about my mother. I scoured the book, reading between the lines for any insights.

  But I had been more tired than I thought after my archery lesson from Dagny. I barely made it two pages and I was out. I woke up a few hours later with a crick in my neck, and ringing in my head was the last phrase I’d read in the book—the suns will set in the green sky when the good morning becomes the violent night.

  The nice thing about Merellä was that the magic seemed to block out that infernal ballad of the flowers and birds. While it was a nice reprieve, it was also rather disconcerting. The cloaking enchantments didn’t keep out the average old earworm, like Taylor Swift’s latest song, but they did this.

  Which meant the song was in my head because of more psychokinetic reasons. Was it a side effect of one of the spells the Älvolk had done? Or had someone cursed me with it on purpose? But why would anyone want me to hear that damned song all the time?

  It had an obvious parallel to the sorgblomma—the mourning flower the Älvolk had gotten. But the lyrics didn’t really tell me anything about what to do with the flower or what it was capable of.

  A bird and a flower fall in love, but the bird flies away for the winter. The flower cries so much, the meadow becomes a lake. Which could maybe be a reference to Lake Sodalen that was near Áibmoráigi, according to the note I’d left myself during the Lost Month.

  After all that crying, the flower dies, and the bird comes back. When he sees the flower dead, he freaks out and plucks all his feathers out, so he ble
eds to death on the meadow. Then other flowers bloom in the field.

  And that’s it. A song about a tragic romance between a weeping flower and a bleeding bird.

  Those were more apt names, anyway, than summer bird and—

  “—morning flower,” I heard Indu’s voice saying, and I shivered.

  Suddenly, I remembered something from the Lost Month. The first night we were there, we’d been invited guests of Indu, before he had snapped and locked us all up. But earlier that night, the Älvolk had held a dinner for us in a dark medieval dining hall lit by a hundred candles.

  Before the meal was served, Indu stood and everyone fell silent. “Tonight we all have much to celebrate. It’s not often that we have guests, but it is a fitting way to rejoice at the return of my daughter, my morning flower.” He raised his glass and smiled down at me. “Join in my welcoming them into our home! Skol!”

  And then, right after that, a choir of thrimavolk came in to sing the haunting song stuck in my head.

  Indu had called me the morning flower.

  And then he had stolen my blood.

  The landline rang, a loud, clattering sound that jolted me out of my thoughts. I set aside my book and hurried to grab it, since it was probably Pan. I hadn’t spoken to him since we’d gotten back to Merellä, which hadn’t been that long, but I missed him already anyway.

  I was smiling by the time I answered, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ulla, are you busy?” Dagny asked. Her voice sounded unusually pinched and anxious, but maybe I had just been expecting Pan’s deeper voice.

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so,” I stammered, since she caught me off guard.

  “Good. Because you should come down here,” Dagny said, and I decided that she definitely sounded anxious.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Elof has something he wants to talk to you about. When can you get here? Twenty minutes?”

  “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”

  “Great. See you then.” She hung up before I could ask anything more.

  I got ready lightning fast and jogged down to the Mimirin. I was out of breath by the time I made it up to the third floor, but I got to Elof’s lab in just over twenty minutes.