1
The Road
“Are we crazy?” It wasn’t the first time I had asked that, and I doubted it would be the last time before we got to where we were going.
We still had another twelve hours on the road, if the GPS was to be believed. Over the past day, the two of us had been alternating as drivers in the Jeep so we could stop as little as possible. Going from Oregon to Louisiana left me with plenty of time to worry that we were being ridiculous and doing the wrong thing.
Pan was driving this shift, absently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to “Radar Love,” and he glanced over at me. We’d recently switched seats at the Texas border, so he was still bright-eyed and chipper, and that helped him respond to my boomeranging anxiety with amused patience.
“All right, Ulla, let’s go over the facts again.”
“Okay.” I sat in the passenger seat, with my legs crossed underneath me and my Moleskine composition notebook open on my lap. All of my notes, everything I knew about my parents, the hidden First City, the cult of the Älvolk, the missing amnesiac Eliana, and the tall and handsome Jem-Kruk amounted to little more than a dozen pages.
“Are you worried about Eliana’s safety?” Pan asked.
“Yeah, of course I am! She’s sick, and I don’t know how well she can defend herself.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Not exactly. Jem-Kruk left a note saying to come find her, and I think he’s connected to the Älvolk, and they are believed to reside in the First City. And there was also something strange that his friend Sumi said: ‘Remember to find the woman in the long white dress.’ Whatever that means.”
“Do you know where the First City is?” he asked.
“Not any more than a few rumors. But if anyone knows where it would be, it’s the Omte tribe. They’ve sent missions trying to find it and the Lost Bridge of Dimma.”
“So, if we want to find Eliana, then we’re doing the right thing. Actually, we’re doing about the only thing I can think of to help her, since we have to find her first,” Pan reasoned.
“But we don’t know Eliana that well. Her twin sister alleged that she took her home to help her, and both you and I had to take time off from our internships,” I said, playing devil’s advocate.
“Well, I’m not an intern,” Pan corrected me. “Working at the Inhemsk Project is my full-time job. And I also work part-time as a peurojen.”
I groaned. “That’s even worse!”
“I talked to Sylvi before we left, and everything’s fine,” he assured me with a laugh. “She’s letting me take a sabbatical.”
We both worked at the Inhemsk Project, which was an effort undertaken to help trolls of mixed blood find their place in our kingdoms. Though primarily funded by the Vittra and run by the prestigious Mimirin Talo institute, it was open to all five tribes, with the objective of bolstering our dwindling populations and reconnecting trolls with their heritage and their families.
Sylvi was the head of the Inhemsk, making her our boss. Pan worked in the office, directly under her, searching family records for trolls of mixed blood, and I spent my internship down in the archives, helping translate old documents. That didn’t give me a lot of time to spend with Sylvi, but it was more than enough for me to discern that she did not like me, and she didn’t really seem to like anyone at all.
“Really?” I asked in surprise. “She didn’t strike me as the understanding type.”
“She’s not, but she does care about the truth.” Pan looked over at me. He was still smiling, but his dark eyes had gone serious. “What’s going on with you? Did Elof ever let you know what is going with those weird results he got with your blood test?”
Elof Dómari—the docent at the Mimirin who specialized in troglecology (the study of troll-specific biology, including genealogy and genetic psychokinesis)—had taken blood from both Eliana and me so he could analyze it for ancestry. It was standard practice for the Inhemsk Project, a routine test to help decipher where exactly orphans and abandoned babies fit in and where they had come from.
Usually the test came back a few days later with a simple answer. Pan had told me he’d found out within two days that he was a KanHu half-TOMB (a troll of mixed blood with Kanin and human parentage).
But my results had come back strangely inconclusive. Elof was certain that one of my parents was Omte, but the other one … all he could say for sure was that it didn’t match any human or troll sample recorded at the Mimirin.
That was nothing compared to Eliana’s experience. During the draw, her blood was visibly different—dark and iridescent. The whole incident had been traumatic for her, and it ended with a terrified Eliana running off.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Whatever is going on with Eliana, that’s of interest to the Inhemsk. But my thing, it’s probably a mistake. Miscalibrated lab equipment or something. I doubt that my blood has anything that would interest Sylvi.”
“Have you set up another test with Elof?” Pan asked. “You know, to rule out if it was a faulty reading.”
I shook my head. “There wasn’t really time. Everything has been so chaotic and busy. And after Illaria took Eliana, I wanted to make sure she was safe before I worried about stuff that can wait.”
“Good on you,” he said, sounding mildly impressed. “The forty-one hours I waited for my results made me absolutely stir-crazy.”
“But didn’t you already know what the test was going to say? I mean, your mom told you all about your dad, right?” I asked.
“Exactly. I only ‘knew’ what my mom had told me, and her claims sounded pretty far-fetched. I’m the secret love child of a human and a troll king—and he happened to fall ill and die right after I was born,” he said. “I wanted to believe her, but until Elof confirmed it, I didn’t actually know.”
“Did it change how you feel?” I asked quietly. “About yourself, I mean. Knowing for certain who you are?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s hard to explain. It didn’t really change anything, but it changed … the color of everything. Before, I saw the world in a shade of wondering and questioning. But now it’s a bit clearer. I can see things more as they are instead of only as what they might mean.”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think I know exactly what you mean.”
“I did struggle for a bit after. It was a relief, but not in the way I thought it would be. And then with the Kanin royalty too afraid or too stuck up to even acknowledge my existence…” He trailed off. “I didn’t really know how I fit into anything.”
“I’m glad you figured it out,” I said.
He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I wouldn’t say I’ve figured it out yet. And it took some time to work through it. Actually, the friend that we’ll be staying with—”
“Rikky?” I supplied.
“Yeah, Rikky helped me deal with all my stuff after I got to Merellä.”
Before we’d left Merellä, back when Pan and I were still in the planning stages for our road trip/possible rescue mission, we’d discussed affordable options. Pan and I both had savings accounts, but neither of them were exactly overflowing. Pan mentioned that his friend Rikky moved back to Fulaträsk last year. So he’d called and arranged for us to stay there for a couple weeks.