40

Ögonen

The next day, I headed down to Elof’s lab. It was the soonest he could see me, since he was busy trying to figure out something to help Eliana. Pan came with me, albeit grudgingly, because he still wasn’t convinced this was safe for me to do.

I was tired and walked slowly, so I didn’t mind his pace anyway. Yesterday had been a long, exhausting day, and I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Eliana had bunked up in my bed with me, where there was hardly enough room for us both. Not to mention she was a tiny furnace, and when I finally did fall asleep, I woke up drenched in sweat.

Plus, she’d wanted to stay up all night, bonding over sisterly things. The hardest part about that was that she couldn’t tell me much about herself, so she was mostly asking me questions.

And I just . . . didn’t feel like bonding.

It was bizarre, because I’d spent so much of my life longing for family, and now I’d discovered some of my only living family members, and that I was related to someone that I already knew and cared about . . . and I felt stunningly blank about it.

Maybe because I’d already gone through the roller coaster of thinking that I had many sisters—including my good friend Bryn and my nemesis Noomi—to finding out that I didn’t.

Then I found that my real siblings were the amnesiac Eliana, her evil twin Illaria, and the unusual, wild Prince Furston.

And I was still digesting my parentage confirmation.

Something about all that left me feeling sorta numb and disconnected from Eliana. But I hoped once I had absorbed this all and gotten all the Älvolk/Lost Month mess behind me, I’d be able to really embrace Eliana as my sister.

That’s why it was so important that I remembered what happened during the Lost Month. So I could deal with it and move on with my life. Until I understood fully what Indu had used me for, it would all feel like unfinished business to me.

Well, that and Jem and Sumi seemed to think it would be mighty bad for everyone if the Älvolk got the bridge open.

The Mimirin was quiet because it was Sunday, and Elof was alone in the lab when we got there. He’d forgone his usual kaftan-style lab coat, and he just wore a burgundy dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons of his collar undone.

“Are you ready for all this, Ulla?” he asked, and his tight smile did little to ease the anxiety bubbling in my stomach.

“Yeah, of course!” I forced myself to sound confident and upbeat because Pan was looking at me, and he already had serious safety concerns about this. I knew his fears weren’t exactly unwarranted, but I thought (hoped) I was strong enough to handle them.

“Wait, what is that?” Pan asked. We’d been walking toward where Elof sat at the island, but Pan stopped short.

He pointed to a big metal tub sitting nearby, filled with slowly melting ice cubes.

I winced because I distinctly remembered Tove Kroner dumping me in a cold shower in the Trylle palace bathroom. His sister had been helping to recover memories when I overheated.

“It’s only a precaution,” Elof said. “Because of how things went with Dagny.”

“Are you sure this is safe?” Pan asked.

“No,” he admitted with a rough exhale. “But I’ve made it as safe as I can.” He’d been holding on to a small jar of sky-blue liquid, and he slid it across the island toward me. “This is an elixir to help prevent inflammation and keep your body temperature down. You should drink it before the Ögonen arrives, so it has time to take effect.”

“Inflammation?” Pan sounded alarmed, and I grabbed the jar and gulped down the bitter, milky liquid before he could talk me out of it.

“Dagny had some mild brain swelling, and I hope to avoid that this time around,” Elof said, keeping his tone as matter-of-fact as possible.

Pan opened his mouth like he was about to protest, but the door at the back of the lab opened, and a slender Ögonen ducked as they came in. I’d seen them plenty of times by now, but I never got used to their appearance.

They were trollian but only in a vague, androgynous way. They were totally nude always, but they were hairless and without any obvious outward genitalia or sex characteristics. Their skin was the color of burnt ochre, but it was thin enough to let some light pass through, highlighting their veins and organs. Though I could see it wasn’t true, they moved like they were made of jelly, oddly graceful and fluid.

I hadn’t been this close to an Ögonen since I had the run-in with the guardian of the catacombs back at the beginning of summer, and that had been a rather traumatic experience. I gulped down my fear and smiled up at the mouthless face towering above me.

Creepy, creepy mouthless face with troll eyes, I thought, before remembering that the Ögonen can read minds. Or something like that. I tried to think of nothing, but my mind immediately went back to the brief and unfairly chaste make-out session I’d had with Pan the previous night on the landing outside my apartment.

He’d come back over for supper, after an unsuccessful trip with Calder down in the archives. It had been a fun, chaotic dinner, and the only moment alone we could get was at the end before he’d left.

I thought we’d only do a quick goodbye, but he pulled me into his arms and kissed me passionately. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he pushed me backward, until my back was against the wall. Then I buried my fingers in his dark curls, and—

“This is Ur.” Elof interrupted my thoughts, and my cheeks flushed with embarrassed heat as he motioned to the Ögonen, who merely blinked down at me.

“Hello,” I said uncertainly, but I didn’t notice a reply from Ur the Ögonen.

“Ur doesn’t communicate much,” Elof said, somewhat apologetically. “Earlier, I arranged this all with Amalie and Ur, so they know what to do.”

With their long slender finger, they pointed to the island beside us.

“I think they want us to get on with it then,” Elof said. “So I’ll have you lie back on the island.”

“You want me to just climb up and lie down on the countertop?” I asked.

“It’ll be a bit cold, but I think that will work to your benefit,” he said.

I hopped up onto the island. Pan took my hand to steady me, even though I didn’t need it, but it made me feel better anyway. I scooted back on the counter and lay back.

Ur walked around until they stood right behind my head, and then they knelt on the floor. They brought their hands up to either side of my face, and I felt their fingertips—like ten cold pools of water pressing against my skin. The thumbs on my temples, the rest staggered down my cheeks.

“Ur needs you to try to remember something from—” Elof was saying.

But I was already there. And it wasn’t like I was remembering. I was there. Back in the Lost Month.