“That sounds a little fatalistic to me,” I argued. “Things are rough, but that doesn’t mean we’re going extinct.”
“The fact that you’re even here is proof that I’m not the only one who’s worried.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re here for the Inhemsk Project. Do you really think the Mimirin would let in TOMBs like you?” Dagny asked. I must’ve looked confused, because she clarified, “TOMB is an acronym for ‘trolls of mixed blood.’ That’s what everyone calls the Inhemsk Project members.”
“TOMBs?” I laughed dryly. “Everything around here is so Gothic and gloomy. Maybe I can get together with the rest of the TOMBs, and we can start a Joy Division cover band.”
Once we finally got through security, we entered the grand main hall, where the barrel-vaulted ceiling stretched out a hundred feet above us. I wanted to take a moment to appreciate the enormity of it all and the history carved into the architecture, but the crowd was pushing me along.
Just around the corner of the main hall was a large room full of tiny lockers, and Dagny quickly ushered me over to them.
“No shoes allowed beyond here,” she explained, not that I minded. Like most trolls, I hated wearing shoes, and I was always looking for a way around them.
The lockers had a slot for change, and it cost only two quarters for the entire day. Once a locker was shut, a key was released, and I slid it onto the long chain I wore around my neck, along with the key to the apartment and a stone talisman carved into a small polar bear.
Dagny led me down a long corridor off the locker room, and then stopped abruptly when the hallway forked underneath an arch.
“Well, this is where we part ways.” Dagny motioned down the hall. “The Inhemsk office is the second door on the right.”
“Thanks for getting me this far,” I said, but she had already started walking in the opposite direction down the hall.
10
Inhemsk
Like many of the other doors I’d passed in the Mimirin, the office door had a frosted stained-glass image inlaid in the wood. This one featured a yellow flower dipped in red blood, and while I wasn’t sure what it was in reference to, it seemed fitting for the Inhemsk Project.
I knocked meekly on the door, and a gravelly female voice immediately barked, “Come in!”
I stepped into an office overflowing with paper. Bookcases and mismatched file cabinets were lined up throughout the office, creating a labyrinth of cubicles where half a dozen men and women were typing furiously on old laptops. Files, binders, books, and loose-leaf paper were stacked up all over the desks and any available surface, so it was hard to get a real sense of the size of the office.
The only obviously visible troll was a tall, slender woman in her forties, standing to the side of the desk buried in the center of the room. She held a copper thermos in her hands, the many rings on her long fingers clanking gently against the metal. Her dark brown curls hung stiffly above her shoulders, and she wore a fitted navy blazer with tapered pants, giving her an air of cool professionalism.
From under heavy hooded lashes, her dark eyes stared skeptically at me. “Can I help you?” she asked, in the same gruff voice that had invited me in.
“I’m Ulla Tulin. I’m here for the internship.”
“Right.” Her thin lips pressed into a tight smile. “The Trylle favor.”
I bristled slightly but kept my smile polite. “I wouldn’t say that a recommendation letter is a favor—”
She waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here, and we take all the help we can get. I’m Sylvi Hagen, the director of the Inhemsk Project. Unfortunately, I have a meeting, so I won’t be able to show you around, but I’ll leave you in capable hands.”
Sylvi’s gaze turned to a young man, mostly hidden behind the stacks of folders and files on the desk nearest to her. In fact, I could only really see his short black curls and sharp eyebrows.
“You have some time now, don’t you?” Sylvi asked, absently tapping her rings against her thermos.
“Yeah, of course,” he replied without hesitation.
“Perfect.” She turned back to me with a bland, tired smile. “So, Ella—”
“Ulla,” I corrected her.
“Right. Ulla Tulin, this is one of our researchers, Panuk Soriano.”
I stepped closer to Sylvi so I could finally get a real look at him, but he was already getting to his feet. He couldn’t have been much older than me, though I suspected that his full cheeks and wide dark eyes gave him a deceptively youthful appearance. He leaned over the desk, extending his arm out toward me, and I realized—with a nervous flurry warming my belly—that he was very handsome.
“Nice to meet you,” he said as we shook hands.
“Likewise,” I said, swallowing back my nerves enough to manage a smile.
“Great,” Sylvi announced abruptly. “I’ll leave you two to it, then.” Then she walked away, leaving Panuk to sort everything out with me.
“So, Sylvi gave me your file this morning,” he explained as he shuffled through the folders on his desk. “But, of course, now I can’t find it.” He grimaced and shook his head. “I’m sorry about this. Sylvi likes to say that the office is in a constant state of organized chaos, but it’s really just chaos.”
He let out a self-deprecating laugh, then straightened up and rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t find your file now, but it doesn’t matter because I read it earlier, and you’re here now, so…”
When he looked back at me, an easy crooked smile spread out across his face. “I guess that makes me your official welcome wagon. Welcome to the glamorous world of dusty books and paper cuts. I’m sure you’ll come to adore squinting at illegible ancient handwriting well into the wee hours of the morning.”
“Wow, I hadn’t realized it was so prestigious. Now I feel underdressed,” I joked and motioned to my plaid challis shirt and skinny jeans, an outfit that wasn’t all that dissimilar from his own flannel and jeans combo.
He looked me over, then laughed again, but this time heartier and warmer. “I think you’ll fit in just fine around here.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I hope so.”
“I should probably start by showing you around.” He walked out from behind the desk, coming over to where I stood awkwardly in the middle of the office, and then he gestured vaguely around. “This is the main office, where all the salaried staff have their desks and do their work. But the volunteers and interns spend hardly any time here, so I’ll spare you all the gory details of our nightmare filing system.
“You understand how this whole arrangement works, right?” he asked. “Each day you give us seven hours helping to collate our records and enter data, you get two hours of access to our records to look up your family and ancestry.”
I nodded. “I gotta put in my time if I want your help.”
“That is basically the motto at the Mimirin.” He leaned in closer to me, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. The motto is actually, ‘Ex nihilo nihil fit,’ and if the powers that be heard me saying otherwise, they would not be happy.”