“I don’t think my memory loss is due to trauma, though. I left myself notes in preparation for it, so I knew it was coming. It had to have been a spell or some type of troll ability.”
“I presumed as much, so I told Tove the same,” Finn said. “He still thinks he and Sunniva might be able to help you.”
A minute later, the door to the parlor opened, and the Queen strode in. It was the first time I had seen Wendy without her entourage.
But here she was, on her own and stripped of her usual pageantry. Her long curls hung down her back, free of her crown, and she’d left off most of her jewels. She was in her late twenties, with a stark silver lock of hair contrasting with her otherwise dark brown hair, and she had friendly eyes and a cool, anxious smile.
I got to my feet the moment she opened the door, but Finn still beat me. Wendy went to him first, giving him a cordial hug while offering apologies. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Tove and Sunniva are on their way.”
“No apology necessary,” he assured her. “You’ve already done so much. I’m only sorry that I need to keep imposing on you.”
“Finn, it’s no imposition, and you know that,” she said, then turned to me. “Ulla, it’s so good to see you after the ordeal you’ve had.” She dismissed my curtsey with a wave of her hand and motioned for me to sit down beside her on the settee.
“I’m all right, all things considered,” I said.
“Good.” She smiled. “We were all so worried about you here.”
“Thank you. I appreciate all you’ve done to help.”
“You are a citizen of the Trylle kingdom, and it’s my duty to protect you,” she said. “Your family are among my oldest friends. There was no choice between your life and a flowering plant.”
“… what?” I asked.
“That’s what we traded,” she elaborated. “The mourning flower.”
“What?” I repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not sure how much you remember.” She glanced to Finn, and he gave a small shrug before she looked back at me. “We negotiated through Patrik Boden in Isarna, who was talking with the leader of a radicalized tribe called the Älvolk. Most of the time, he only sent lengthy screeds about his beliefs with no real discussion at all.
“But eventually, the only thing they demanded was the sorgblomma, more poetically known as the mourning flower,” she went on.
“I thought that was just made up,” I admitted.
Emma had a book called Sunny Plants for Funny Kids, and it had everything from Venus flytraps to Tolkien’s fictional Ents. I’d assumed that a globeflower with the Latin name trollius funus was a myth like some of the others.
If the illustrations were accurate, it was an arctic bush with large peony-like flowers. The petals were mostly a bold yellow-gold but they became a vivid red near the stem. The stem itself was filled with a viscous, aloe-like substance that “bled” out if the thorns were broken off.
The most notable thing about the flower—and where its name came from—was that it smelled like death. Sickly sweet and musty with floral undertones.
“The mourning flower is real, but the only known plants have been solely in my family’s possession for generations,” Wendy said.
“What does it do? Why do they want it?” I asked.
“We’re not sure,” the Queen admitted with a surreptitious glance toward Finn. “We’re hoping that your recovered memories could shed some light.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to help.”
“Don’t worry.” Finn leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “You’re here, and you’re safe, and your only focus is on getting better.”
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was exchanged for … flowers,” I said. “What about the others? Were the flowers ransom enough for all of us, or were they traded for something else?”
“It was a package deal—all of the plants for all four of you.” Wendy hesitated slightly before continuing. “That’s part of the reason that the negotiations took as long as they did. We needed time to be sure that the sorgblomma doesn’t have any dangerous applications.”
Finn made a sound—a subtle grunt of disagreement—and she frowned.
“We all value your lives, but I had to be sure that I wasn’t handing a radical cult a weapon of destruction,” she said, then softer, more empathetic: “I’m sorry for any suffering you endured, but it is my duty to keep the kingdom safe.”
“So what were the applications of the flower?” I asked.
“The nectar in the stem can be used to flavor tea, but it leaves a bitter taste and even a spoonful can lead to stomach upset,” she said with a sigh. “We couldn’t find anything more serious than that. Markis Ansvarig Patrik asked the Älvolk what they wanted the flowers for, but the only answer he got was their insistence that the flowers always belonged to them. Indu claimed—”
“Indu?” I asked, startled to hear her saying his name.
“Indu Mattison, one of the leaders of the Älvolk cult,” she said. “You remember him?”
“Sorta. Not really. He’s … he’s my father,” I said, but the words felt cold on my tongue.
Her eyes widened. “He never mentioned that.” Then she looked to Finn. “Neither did you.”
“I only just found out today,” he told her.
“It’s one of the last things I remember clearly,” I said. “We met in Isarna a month ago.”
“So he held his daughter hostage in exchange for a flower and tea flavoring.” Her brow furrowed, and her lips pressed together, and I realized this was the first time I’d seen the Queen worried.
5
Aural
The wood floor felt cold and hard against my back, and a stiff satin pillow was beneath my head. Tove Kroner crouched beside me, carefully laying a damp washcloth across my forehead. His dark hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it back while glancing up at his sister as she circled us.
Both Tove and Sunniva had said that this would go smoother without unnecessary auras, so Wendy and Finn had left us alone, rather reluctantly on Finn’s part. We’d had a brief introduction—Sunniva didn’t look much like Tove (she was a small bird of a girl with wide dark eyes and her hair pulled back into a tight braid, he a tall willow with wild hair silvering at the temples and eyes of mossy green), but they were nearly identical in mannerisms.
Their eyes were always darting around, and they took quick, faltering steps, as if they were always changing their minds about where to go. But they stood tall, shoulders back and heads held high, so they came across as confident but distracted, giving them a strange air of being lost and arrogant.
“Are you ready?” Tove asked, but he kept glancing back and forth between me and his sister, so I wasn’t sure who he was asking.
“I think so,” I said uncertainly.
Sunniva didn’t answer, and instead, she grabbed a nearby end table. It was a circle of green marble, supported by bronze legs shaped like twisting ivy, and she pushed it toward me, unmindful of the legs scraping against the parquet floor.